Tax Day 2022: IRS website experiences major slowdown
Frustrated taxpayers complained of site crashing, inability to log in on agency's busiest day of the year
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Monday is Tax Day, the deadline for U.S. taxpayers to file their return or request an extension from the Internal Revenue Service.
But many frustrated taxpayers reported outages on the IRS' website on its most important day of the year, lashing out at the federal tax collection agency online.
It's a black eye for the agency on what's arguably its most important day of the year. According to the most recent data available, the IRS spent over $2 billion dollars in the 2020 fiscal year on taxpayer filing and account services.
Taxpayers took to social media and outage reporting site Down Detector to complain of problems with the IRS' website on Tax Day. (Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Service outage tracking site Down Detector indicated an increase in outage reports about the IRS website that surged mid-morning and remained elevated into the afternoon.
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Several users said they received a message on the IRS site that stated, "We are unable to complete your request due to technical difficulties." One user who posted out of more than 5,000 comments wrote on Down Detector, "I can't even revise my extended payment or anything. They better own up to their site problems and not penalize taxpayers. This is B.S."
Other taxpayers reporting not being able to log in to the site, and a number of other users said they received error messages when attempting to make payments for estimated taxes.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. (Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
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Complaints of outages also poured over onto social media, with one Twitter user asking the IRS if its site was down, explaining, "Trying to pay but (so far) site has crashed, reloaded, then failed to allow me to log in."
Another extended choice words for the agency, tweeting, "Thank you #IRS for having such a poor system in place that I can't pay you the money I owe and will likely be fined for it because your system is down. After spending 4 hours trying to verify my identity through your new login process...get bent. #TaxDay."
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The IRS told FOX Business that its site was never down on Tax Day.
"The IRS Online Account tool is seeing high demand, and taxpayers may experience short delays or wait times to access some features," the agency said in a statement late Monday. "For taxpayers trying to make a payment, you can select the payment option in the waiting room of the Online Account tool or go directly to Direct Pay, the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System, and options to pay by credit card. Taxpayers can find those tax payment options on our website. The IRS apologizes for the inconvenience."
This article has been updated to include the IRS' response.