Taxpayers Given Extension To File After IRS.gov Crashes On Tax Day

CBS Local --Due to technical glitches that caused the Internal Revenue Service website to malfunction just hours before the filing deadline, taxpayers were granted an extra day to file their returns.

The IRS website malfunctioned on Tuesday, leaving e-filers on IRS.gov without a place to file their returns online. The Treasury Department announced it is granting them extra time.

April 15 is the tax filing deadline every year to file taxes, but this year it fell on a Sunday, so the deadline was April 17. Now, the IRS says it will extend the deadline to April 18 at midnight for all taxpayers.

The malfunctioning systems included e-file and Direct Pay. The system was down Tuesday morning.

On Tuesday, the Direct Pay section of the Internal Revenue Service's web site was not working. E-filers, instead, found an advisory message that read "This service is currently unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience."

According to CBS News, IRS Acting Commissioner David Kautter acknowledged the issue in a House hearing. "We are working to resolve the issue and taxpayers should continue to file as they normally would," he said.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin later told the Associate Press, "We'll make sure taxpayers have extensions once the system comes up to make sure they can use it and it in no way impacts people paying their taxes."

Direct Pay is a service that lets taxpayers pay their estimated taxes directly via a bank account, free of charge. Paying with a credit card through the IRS' site will cost around two percent of the payment amount, starting at $2.50. Other payment options include paying through a service like TurboTax or H&R Block.

[H/T CNET]