UPDATE: The IRS is giving the public an extra day to file their taxes following the IT issues. The online payment systems have all been restored.

“Individuals and businesses with a filing or payment due date of April 17 will now have until midnight on Wednesday, April 18. Taxpayers do not need to do anything to receive this extra time,” the government agency said in a statement.

Original story:

Paying your taxes is never pleasant, but it just got worse for some with an overloaded IRS website unable to handle the influx of procrastinators.

The Internal Revenue Service’s “direct pay” and “payment plan” options are both down, according to the agency’s website.

In an email, the IRS said: “Currently, certain IRS systems are experiencing technical difficulties, [but] taxpayers should continue filing their tax returns as they normally would.”

April 15 is officially Tax Day, but it fell on a Sunday this year, and Washington D.C.’s Emancipation Day holiday was yesterday. Since the deadline can’t be a holiday or weekend, today’s the final day to file.

IRS Acting Commissioner David J. Kautter was on Capitol Hill this morning, where he told(Opens in a new window) the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that “a number of IRS systems are unavailable at the moment. We are working to resolve this issue.”

The direct pay feature lets you send money to the IRS directly from your bank account, whereas the payment plan option lets those who qualify pay in installments.

Despite the outage, the IRS is telling people to file their tax returns as they normally would. The agency’s website still lets you pay with a debit or credit card via third-party(Opens in a new window) providers. However, you do have to pay a $2 fee to use them.

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In addition, you can pay your taxes via third-party tax preparation software, like TurboTax.

“The challenge is the transmission between the (payment) processer and the IRS,” Kautter said in the hearing. “We have backup systems that we are bringing up online… hopefully we will have the issue resolved quickly.”

Kautter also told lawmakers that taxpayers can file a six-month extension if they need more time, which can also be done via a number(Opens in a new window) of third-party providers.

Still, at least one lawmaker was irked by the trouble. “In a real sense, this is game day for the IRS, and the IRS can’t get out of the locker room,” said US Rep. Greg Gianforte of Montana.

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