IRS computer problems shut down e-file system

The IRS suffered a "hardware failure" on Wednesday afternoon, which left many of its tax processing systems unavailable Wednesday night, the agency announced in a statement.

The problem causes the agency to stop accepting electronically filed tax returns.

The outage could affect returns, but agency officials said "major disruptions" aren't anticipated.

"The IRS is still assessing the scope of the outage," the agency said. "At this time, the IRS does not anticipate major refund disruptions; we continue to expect that nine out of 10 taxpayers will receive their refunds within 21 days."

Read more from USA Today.