Buzz
Well done, procrastinators! Thanks to a timely crash on the IRS’s ‘Direct Pay’ page, you get an extra day to file your taxes this year.
Throughout tax day, those scrambling to submit were greeted with an error message saying the site would remain down until December 31, 9999, even though payments were still due. The outage continued until the early evening, giving filers until Wednesday, April 18, to submit their returns.
The cause of the outage remains unclear. The New York Times reports that the IRS suggested the issue was likely due to a hardware malfunction, and not a cyberattack.
Naturally, you shouldn’t procrastinate when it comes to filing your taxes, but you could always go the old-school route: mail them in. However, security experts caution against this, as paper returns are vulnerable to interception by scammers. Also, there are other filing options available besides the IRS site.
CNBC reports that the IRS anticipates receiving 14 million extension requests. If you need more time, here’s how to file your own extension, but keep in mind that you must still pay any amounts owed right away.
