You might already know that Monday, October 13, is a federal holiday. It’s Columbus Day and that means that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), along with the U.S. Postal Service and a number of other federal agencies will be closed. Most state government offices are also closed and, as where I live, many schools.
It might feel, however, like IRS is taking an extended holiday since not only will offices be closed over the long weekend but many services will be inaccessible, as well. Specifically, over the Columbus Day weekend beginning at 5:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday, October 11, and ending at approximately 5:00 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, October 14, a planned outage will affect a number of e-Services. This planned outage happens every year so that the IRS can update their systems in preparation for the upcoming filing season which generally kicks off in January.
The affected services for this weekend include:
- e-Services Transcript Delivery;
- TIN Matching;
- e-file Application; and
- Modernized e-file and the legacy e-file systems, including both the MeF Production and the Assurance Testing Systems
As a result, the IRS requests (downloads as a pdf) that you not attempt to access the MeF Production or ATS to transmit business/individual tax returns, retrieve acknowledgments, or submit any other service requests until the systems are turned back on. Most services, including the IRS Modernized e-File (MeF) system, should be back online at 5:00 am EDT on Tuesday, October 14. You can check the e-Services page on the IRS website for an updated status once the outage begins.
If you haven’t yet filed your tax return, you’ll want to be aware of those outages – especially if you are relying on your tax professional or a tax software provider to file your return electronically. Remember that individual federal income tax returns on extension are due on Wednesday, October 15.
