WASHINGTON -- The IRS stopped accepting electronically filed tax returns on Wednesday due to issues with its computer systems, but "major refund disruptions" are not anticipated.



A hardware failure impacted several tax processing systems, which are still unavailable as of Wednesday evening. The systems affected by the outage include the e-file system and other related systems.



"The IRS is currently in the process of making repairs and working to restore normal operations as soon as possible. We anticipate some of the systems will remain unavailable until tomorrow," the IRS said in a statement.



IRS.gov is still available, although a number of the services on the site are offline.



Taxpayers can continue to prepare their tax returns and can file their returns to their e-file provider, however those companies will hold the returns until the systems are back online.



If you have already filed your tax return, you will not be impacted by the outage.



While the IRS is still assessing the outage, major refund disruptions are not anticipated. The IRS said they expect "9 out of 10 taxpayers will receive their refunds within 21 days."