TurboTax Goes Down as Late Filers Panic

TurboTax, which is one of the most popular tax preparation programs in the United States, temporarily went down and made last minute filers panic. At around 6:40 Sunday night, filers were not able to log in or enter data online for around an hour. But the company immediately worked on the problem in order to bring its service online once again.

According to TurboTax spokeswoman Ashley McMahon, the problem was with a configuration setting that required adjustment in order to accommodate high amounts of traffic to the site. Most users turned to Twitter to air their grievances.

TurboTax noted that its site was never totally down. It said that its TurboTax Online was temporarily unavailable for around an hour. They resolved the problem and performance was restored. It reported that no further issues were reported.

The company said that the root of the issue was a configuration error in its online application. Some settings had to be adjusted due to the traffic the day before the deadline. Most customers continued to work and complete their returns. Some customers were not able to complete some parts of their tax filing process during the down time.

Some customers were already stressed out as it is and the down time of TurboTax Online added to their troubles. TurboTax also went to Twitter to calm down its customers and give them the latest with regards to the issue.

The clock is ticking down for last minute tax filers. The season was shorter than usual because of the extra holidays and a leap year. It last 75 days as compared to the previous year’s 102 days. TurboTax served 25 million users in 2012. The company managed to bring its application online once again for the final hours of the April 15 deadline. Most users were thankful but not everyone is pleased with the unexpected down time.