UPDATE | IRS extends filing deadline to midnight Wednesday

Mnuchin says online tax filers to get extension

BC-APFN-US--IRS-Online Payment Glitch-The Latest,1st Ld-Writethru

Apr 17, 2018 4:35PM (GMT 20:35) - 269 words

Eds: Changes dateline. Adds comments from Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. With AP Photos.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the outage of the IRS payment website (all times local):

4:30 p.m.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says Americans who have been unable to pay their taxes Tuesday because the IRS payment website is down will receive an extension when the site is working again.

The IRS will extend the tax filing-deadline for all filers to midnight Wednesday due to glitch with agency's website. The website has been down most of the day and wasn't operational late Tuesday aftenoon.

Mnuchin commented on the outage when asked by reporters after an event in Derry, N.H., where he promoted the Trump tax overhaul along with Ivanka Trump.

Mnuchin described the problem as a "high-volume technical issue" that the IRS is attempting to resolve.

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., with most federal offices closed, including the IRS

3:24 a.m.

Associated Press

Last-minute filers got a rude surprise on tax day: The IRS website to make payments and access other key services is down. But the agency still expects Americans to pay their taxes on time.

The IRS did not give an immediate explanation for the failures but said in a statement that "certain IRS systems are experiencing technical difficulties."

The agency also said that taxpayers "should continue filing their tax returns as they normally would." The problem is electronic filing is the most popular way to file. And the IRS offered no immediate solution.

Pages on the IRS website (www.irs.gov) used to view account information, make a direct payment or set up a payment plan were all not functioning most of the day today.

It's unclear when and why the failure occurred. But it appears, based on a message on the site, that the online payment system became unavailable at 2:50 a.m. ET that morning.

Visitors to the IRS payment site saw one of two messages: One that says the website is unavailable. And another that the outage was due to planned maintenance scheduled to end on Sept. 22, 2016.

Both messages said, "Note that your tax payment is due although IRS Direct Pay may not be available."

The IRS snafu also caused problems for popular third-party tax preparers such as Turbo Tax and H&R Block. Both said that they will hold onto customer tax returns and file them as soon as the IRS system reopens.