ATO website crashes as Australians try to submit tax returns

Australians will not be able to file their tax returns for the next few hours.

The tax office has shut down its online customer services just hours after its boss said he was pleased with how they were performing.

The outage — which may last until late on Wednesday night — affects the myTax portal and will stop many Australians from filing their tax returns online.

The ATO's assistant commissioner Jonathon Thorpe has told staff that the systems will be offline for "the next few hours".

"We are aware some internal and external systems have been experiencing intermittent issues," a staff memo said.

Read more...http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-05/ato-website-breaks-down-as-people-try-to-lodge-tax-returns/8681630