Available IRS Services during the Labor Day Planned Maintenance Outage

A planned power outage around the Labor Day weekend will affect a number of IRS systems and limit the availability of several services between Thursday, Aug. 30 and Tuesday, Sept. 4.

The systems will be unavailable due to maintenance and upgrading an electrical system. The IRS apologizes for any inconvenience and appreciates the patience of taxpayers and tax professionals while this critical maintenance is performed.

Below you will find detailed information that describes what systems are affected by the temporary outage. If you need to contact us or use our various online services, please do so before or after the outage period.

Toll-Free Services

• Our assistors who support our main toll-free lines can only provide limited service beginning early Thursday morning, Aug. 30 through 4 p.m. ET Friday, Aug. 31. During this time, we will be able to help with tax law issues but will be unable to access or update tax account information.
• The main toll-free system will be completely unavailable after 4 p.m. ET Friday until noon ET on Tuesday, September 4. If you need to contact us through our toll-free lines, we strongly recommend doing so before Thursday Aug. 30 or after noon on Tuesday, Sept. 4 when our tax account access is restored.
• For the tax practitioner community, the e-help desk toll-free service and the Practitioner Priority Service will be available during the dates and times indicated above.

Taxpayer Assistance Centers

• The Taxpayer Assistance Centers (TACs) will remain open for their regular hours during the outage period. They will be able to answer your tax law questions, prepare your returns and perform limited service to your tax account. If you need to make a tax payment, the TACs can accept most forms of payment, including checks and money orders, but cannot accept cash payments during the outage period.

Taxpayer Notice Information

• If you have questions on a CP2000 notice, you received in the mail and you need to call the IRS, our assistors will be available at the toll-free number included in the notice throughout the maintenance period.
• Help will be available on other notices associated with a balance due or an open correspondence exam issue through 4 p.m. ET Friday, Aug. 31 and after noon ET on Tuesday Sept. 4.
• Help on notices related to levies or liens will be unavailable Thursday, Aug. 30 until noon ET on Tuesday, Sept. 4.

Information for Business Filers

• If you are a business filer and in need of an Employee Identification Number or need to make a Federal Tax Deposit, we recommend doing so before Friday, Aug. 31 at 4p.m. We will not be able to provide you those services until the outage period ends and our systems are restored around noon ET on Tuesday, Sept. 4.

Information for Student Aid Applicants

• If you need to file the Federal Application for Student Aid form, we wish to remind you that while the FAFSA will be available electronically, the fields requiring tax return information will not automatically populate during the outage. Please keep these outage dates in mind as you or your student(s) need to submit this form, particularly if you don’t have access to previous year’s tax returns.

Interactive Tax Assistant Availability

• The Interactive Tax Assistant will be available on IRS.gov throughout the outage period. It is a great resource if you have questions on tax law, filing requirements and other issues using a probe and response process.

Electronic Federal Tax Payment System

• You will be able to make payments through the EFTPS. Your account will be updated after the outage period and will reflect the date you made the payment.