is now 
The IRS reports it suffered a temporary computer failure that involved several of its processing systems just two weeks into the federal individual income tax-filing season. The system failure left the agency temporarily unable to process electronically filed tax returns Wednesday, February 3rd, and most of the day Thursday, February 4th. The IRS began accepting 2015 tax returns for processing January 19th.
The agency explained in an online statement it had experienced a “hardware failure” that was “affecting a number of tax processing systems”. Tools that both taxpayers and tax preparers use were not working including the “Where’s My Refund” online search tool and the updated e-file system that was just put into practice for 2015 tax returns. By Thursday morning, the “Where’s My Refund” tool and other services were operating again. However, preparers reported the e-file service was not yet running consistently.
When the incident occurred an agency spokesman said, “Taxpayers can still prepare their returns, and tax preparers will have to hold them until the IRS is able to take them again.” A new statement said it had resumed processing returns by 5pm Thursday and the system outage issues had been resolved.
The agency continues to say that it expects to meet its goal of processing 90% of refunds within 21 days. For more information, click here to read the IRS news release.
