IRS eFile System Will be Down on IRS Furlough Days

The Internal Revenue Service reminded tax professionals Monday that its offices will be closed on June 14, July 5, July 22 and August 30 due to the current budget situation, and the closure will also affect the IRS’s Modernized eFile System.

The MeF system (both the Production system and the Assurance Testing System) will not be available from 10:00 p.m., Eastern Time of the prior day until 9:00 a.m., Eastern Time of the following day, on these dates. For example, when the closure falls on a Friday, the system will be unavailable from 10:00 p.m. ET on Thursday until 9:00 a.m. AT on Saturday.

The MEF Production and ATS shutdown is scheduled to begin on Thursday, June 13, 2013 at 10:00 p.m., ET and end at 9:00 a.m., ET on Saturday, June 15, 2013.

The IRS also emphasized that states that schedule retrieval of their state submissions may have to change their schedule in order to retrieve submissions in time to validate returns and submit acknowledgements by 10:00 p.m., ET on June 13. Anything not retrieved through MeF by 10:00 p.m. ET cannot be accessed again until MeF reopens for Production on June 15th.

The deadlines on Thursday, June 13 for transmitters will be 8:00 p.m. ET for transmitting both state and federal submissions, and 10:00 p.m. ET for retrieving acknowledgements. For states, the deadline for transmitting acknowledgements will be 9:30 p.m. ET. The startup time on Saturday, June 15, will be 9:00 am ET for both transmitters and states.

The IRS advised tax professionals to monitor its MeF Status Page for any updates and  apologized for any inconvenience.

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