HACKER Q&A
📣 shireboy

Why does this online IRS form have an hours of operation?


https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/apply-for-an-employer-identification-number-ein-online So aside from the obvious jabs at IRS and snark like “Last call on Hacker News. Come back again tomorrow!”, anyone have any idea why this form has an hours of operation?

  👤 pwg Accepted Answer ✓
> anyone have any idea why this form has an hours of operation?

Best guess: The back end processing is actually performed by humans at the IRS office in DC and the form is simply an online "request" to one of those humans. And the office where those humans work is only staffed from 7am to 10pm EST.

👤 Spooky23
That’s probably a very old system and it actually works pretty well.

My guess is it’s some ancient mainframe or even pre-mainframe app that is running on batch jobs that still require production control overseen by humans.

Federal budgets aren’t like private sector. They don’t just allocate $2B for the IRS commissioner to use as best suits the business… specific programs and tasks are authorized by congress. In the case of IRS, there’s a group of people in congress who are dedicated to IRS performing as inefficiently and ineffectively as possible. (For some things, earned income credit enforcement is fully modernized and effective)

👤 sen
A lot of these government forms that have open/operating hours are about the associated customer/tech support requirements (either from related laws or just requirements from higher-ups) so that dear old voting-Bessie doesn’t get annoyed when she’s stuck halfway through and can’t get a hold of a human to help.
👤 leros
Sometimes there are laws or regulations about when things are available and they weirdly result in online resources having to "close" too.