IRS Misses Windows XP Deadline, Gets Extension

Microsoft’s official end of support for Windows XP came this week, but the Internal Revenue Service — like many businesses and government agencies — is still struggling to migrate away from the venerable desktop operating system.

More than half of the agency’s 110,000 laptops and desktops are still running the operating system. But, no, just because they missed Microsoft’s deadline doesn’t give you an excuse to miss theirs.

“None of our filing season systems or other major business operating systems for taxpayers use Windows XP,” the agency said in a statement. “The IRS emphasizes the situation involving Windows will have no impact on taxpayers, including people filing their tax returns in advance of the April 15 deadline.”

The IRS is among the governments and large businesses that have taken out a paid custom support contract with Microsoft to get an extra year of security patches while it works to migrate its systems.

“This support will provide coverage for our enterprise across the IRS for a year while we complete upgrading all workstations from Windows XP to Windows 7,” the IRS said. “We are taking appropriate steps to ensure our networks, systems and taxpayer data are safe and secure.”

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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