E-Filing Disruption on September 15: IRS' Response to NSA

[itonewbie]

This just in... See below FWIW.  Similar to Intuit's, CCH's professional tax products also had e-filing problems on Sep 15.

The National Society of Accountants (NSA) supports relief of all fees and penalties associated with late returns attributable to the CCH Axcess electronic filing (e-filing) service disruption on September 15, 2020, as well as any other relief the IRS deems appropriate for affected taxpayers and practitioners. It is NSA’s understanding that not only were practitioners unable to submit returns through CCH’s e-filing queue during the outage, many also received notices that previously saved files were corrupted.

Accordingly, NSA is aware that Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting has urged the IRS to consider returns received through its system on September 16, 2020, as timely filed. Additionally, Wolters Kluwer has told its users that it will provide a letter supporting the reason for the late filing should return preparers’ clients receive a late filing notice from the IRS.

In response to NSA’s request for information on how the IRS will handle applicable returns received through the CCH Axcess e-filing system, the IRS on September 18 sent NSA the following statement:

IRS statement

“As always, facts and circumstances are important in any penalty determination. The IRS remains flexible in granting penalty relief where taxpayers can demonstrate good-faith efforts in filing their returns.”

[itonewbie]

Wonder if Intuit is formally engaging the IRS like Wolters Kluwer.  @IntuitAustin @IntuitBettyJo ?

[IRonMaN]

I'm guessing not, at least not until enough people start hollering at Intuit.

On the flip side, procrastinating does have its dangers 😮

[BobKamman]

The more things change, the more they stay the same. This happened last year too. Here is a post from a CPA in Texas (where the state society has been diligent in pursuing these problems):

"5/13/2019 6:55PM CDT – Wolters Kluwer CCH has just published the specific instructions for getting extra time to file specific tax returns with the IRS that are due on 5/15/2019. Taxpayers affected by the service interruption have an additional 7 days, until May 22, 2019, to file the returns listed below.

• 990 – Tax Exempt Organization
• 1120 – Corporations
• 1065 – Partnerships"

I don't see this as a problem with the transmission from the third-party intermediary to IRS.  It appears to me that the link from preparer to third party was inoperative.  My first thought was that this could be due to hackers, but I wonder now if the complexity of the returns, along with the high volume just before the deadline, is responsible. 

[itonewbie]

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@IRonMaN wrote:

On the flip side, procrastinating does have its dangers 😮

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Very true, especially with technology beyond your control.  It's not like the good 'ol days when last-minute printer problems, hands getting cramps from signing stacks of forms/returns, and making runs to the post office on D-day before they close were more or less the only worries.

[TaxGuyBill]

When I first read the title of your post, I though you were referring to the National Security Administration (NSA) and thought the E-filing Disruption was some big Security problem.   🙂

[itonewbie]

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@TaxGuyBill wrote:

When I first read the title of your post, I though you were referring to the National Security Administration (NSA) and thought the E-filing Disruption was some big Security problem.   🙂

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Lol, their acronym could be very misleading these days even though they were established long before the NSA.

[George4Tacks]

A few of us remember a massive failure for e-file on 4/17/2007 due to Intuit's inability to handle the huge deluge of returns. This is the only article I could find, but I remember my very frustrating day trying to submit returns. 

https://www.cnet.com/news/turbotax-e-filing-woes-draw-customer-ire/

[itonewbie]

The IRS has responded to CCH and will cut impacted filers a slack so long as they filed by Sep 17.

https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/NSACCT/UploadedImages/09221de9-44df-4a82-82f7-8d34d89f7...