To misquote Nikki Haley, one of the very few ethical members of TheDonald’s retinue, “I don’t get confused”.  (In case you don’t know about this, she was left hanging after she announced this past week that Steve Mnuchin would be detailing further Russian sanctions for their part in the Syrian poisoning, only to be “clarified”  by TheDonald.)

I told y’all yesterday that it was the last day to file your taxes and POSSIBLY avoid a penalty. (I say possibly, because if you hadn’t paid your tax bill in full by estimated payments or withholding, the IRS can collect an underpayment penalty from the taxpayer. The only guaranteed way to avoid that penalty is to have submitted at least 102% of the previous year’s tax bill, if one still owed taxes by the filing date.)

But, then, again, I hadn’t counted on the IRS screwing up yet again. Many folks were greeted with this screen view yesterday.

Now, I didn’t see that web notice. (We don’t use the public IRS computer system.) Which, in and of itself, clearly misled IRS visitors as to the problem. Because sometime early on 17 April, it was clear that reaching the IRS computer hookup (something tax professionals do when e-filing client taxes) was about as likely as me finding a pot of gold waiting by the side of my TV screen.

By the way, we don’t know if the IRS failure was a software issue or a hardware issue. The IRS has provided no information about the problem.

The fact that the GOP has been starving the IRS for funds for more than 5 years, leaving it short-handed and technologically inept, only meant that a catastrophic failure was guaranteed. But, this failure won’t be the end of these problems. Wait until you try to obtain guidance from the IRS about the new tax law!

Moreover, this was not the first time the IRS crashed on tax day. A few years ago, it became impossible to reach the IRS site on tax day. And, I had the opportunity that year to service a record number of clients who expected to file at the last possible moment. Thankfully, sometime around 11:30 PM on that day, the IRS computers were finally able to accept electronic files. We simply used our west coast address to file client returns. After all, that meant we had until 3 AM EDT to acquit the deadline.

That was a harrowing experience for us, though. We realized that this was going to be a recurrent problem with the IRS. Just like when PPACA (aka Obamacare) opened up its computers to the public for the first time. And, crashed ignominiously. Which the GOP claimed with glee would be the death knell for the program. (I have a post in my queue that will detail how well PPACA is proceeding despite the incessant attacks by the GOP, their slashing of both its budget and open season dates, culminating with the removal of the penalty for those who don’t sign up for insurance. After all, why would the GOP want American citizens to obtain health care at a reasonable price? All the GOP efforts have simply meant health insurance is now more expensive and harder to obtain.)

Which is why this year as more folks flocked to our doors AFTER Pesach (aka Passover which ended 8 April), we knew we had to have a plan. This past Sunday (15 April, the generally accepted Tax Filing Day, which was extended 2 days this year because it was a weekend and because Monday was a holiday in DC and MA), we decided to file extensions for every client who entrusted us to do their taxes- and was still not complete by 4PM on Sunday.  Because we worried that the IRS would once again crash on the last day of the season and our clients could be left out in the cold.

(Note that any client who provided us with all the requisite information by that Sunday deadline would not be charged for the extension filing. [I should explain that our firm determines the fees for tax filing by the form; only if data is not forthcoming or is provided via a mass of receipts and no accounting do we charge for our time involved in processing personal income taxes.] Should we have needed to contact the client for still missing information, the extension fee would be added to their bill.)

So, when we were finding that around 10ish on 17 April that we were not reaching the IRS, we didn’t panic. We were certainly disappointed, but knew that our clients would not be negatively affected. Because their taxes would not be officially due until October!

You do realize that most of the folks who had filed taxes before 1 April were those expecting refunds. According to the IRS, more than 60% of the 100 million tax returns they had processed by then were those where a refund was being provided. After all, most folks want to keep hold of their money as long as they can. (Again, note: When we file taxes for our clients, we arrange that payment should NOT be effected until the last day of tax season. This year that meant 17 April for Federal and most states; 1 May for the Commonwealth of Virginia. No reason for our clients to part with their money early- there is no financial gain to doing so.)

At least 5% of the 165 million tax returns arrive on the last possible day of filing. Those 9 million submission constitute about thrice (3X) the normal submissions to the IRS. And, most of them require the IRS to process the tax return AND a bank transfer (because these folks owe money to the IRS).

And, given the outage yesterday, the IRS has provided taxpayers an additional day to file their taxes. Until tonight at midnight.

To be honest, all of our clients had their taxes filed by last night- except for the one who provided his paperwork late. And, his data included more than 1200 stock sales, each of which require a separate entry on a tax form.

We still could have finished his taxes last night by midnight. But, I decided to let everyone take advantage of the special holiday and call it a day at 9 pm. After all, that meant we only worked 51 hours since 8 AM Sunday morning.

Happy EXTRA Tax Day!