IRS payment site fails on tax day, but you still have to pay

The Internal Revenue Service building in Washington, D.C. The IRS said Tuesday, April 17, 2018, that its online payment system became unavailable. | Associated Press file photo by Susan Walsh, St. George News

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA — Just in time for tax day: The IRS website to make payments is down. But you still have to pay your taxes.

FILE- Internal Revenue Service Acting Commissioner David Kautter testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2019 budget proposal. The IRS website to make payments went down on Tuesday, April 17, 2018. Kautter testified during a House Oversight Hearing Tuesday that a number of systems are down at the moment and that they are working to resolve the issue. Washington, D.C. February 14, 2018 | AP Photo by Susan Walsh, File, St. George News

The IRS did not have an immediate explanation for the failure.

It appears based on a message on the site that the online payment system became unavailable at 2:50 a.m. EDT on Tuesday.

However, the initial message about the outage may have only confused visitors to the site. It said that the payment service, IRS Direct Pay, was experiencing both an unplanned and planned outage. The headline said the service would be available again on Dec. 31, 9999, but the message’s text said the service would resume on Sept. 22, 2016.

The IRS has since updated the website to say it is temporarily unavailable. But the agency adds, “Note that your tax payment is due although IRS Direct Pay may not be available.”

Tax day falls on April 17 this year because April 15 was a Sunday and April 16 was Emancipation Day, a holiday in Washington, D.C.

IRS Acting Commissioner David Kautter testified during a House Oversight Hearing Tuesday that a number of systems are down at the moment and that the agency is working to resolve the issue.

The IRS typically recommends that taxpayers use electronic filing to avoid common mistakes. Online filing is quicker than dropping something in the mail — when the site works, of course. Plus, electronic filers typically get any refund faster.

Written by SARAH SKIDMORE SELL, Associated Press

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @STGnews

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

2 Comments

  • SSTEED April 17, 2018 at 12:27 pm

    You still have to pay (if you choose to); but if you do you are funding the largest criminal organization on the planet. Murder in the form of endless wars and theft in every form. You are paying our boys in blue to “break the kneecaps” of whomever doesn’t want to participate in their extortion racket.
    Taxation is theft.

  • Aggie86 April 17, 2018 at 4:15 pm

    I paid my protection money solely in order to avoid harassment for another year. Taxation is theft.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.