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The IRS EIN Application also has "hours": http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Apply-for-an-Employer-Identification-Number-(EIN)-Onli

by sheetjs 13y ago

The IRS EIN Application also has "hours": http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Apply-for-an-Employer-Identification-Number-(EIN)-Online http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employ... > Our new hours of operation [for the application] are Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Eastern time.

jliptzin 13y ago
Is there a good reason to do this? I'm actually curious
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  In Nevada (where I pay my corporate taxes) it was claimed that hours restrictions were mandated by law ("No part of the office can be open outside of the following hours" kind of thing) I have yet to find the statute though that says that. I agree it is a very weird thing.
- ForHackernews 13y ago
  I guess it gives you a free maintenance window every night.
- 8_hours_ago 13y ago
  Not that this is a good reason, but one possibility is that the backend could require human interaction. Perhaps when the form gets submitted it gets automatically sent to a printer where a person manually files it. I could see a process like that showing up on http://thedailywtf.com http://thedailywtf.com ...
- eli 13y ago
  Define "good." It's pretty common when you've got a mainframe-type system that needs to do a bunch of batch processing and report generation. It's an excellent way to ensure that no data will be altered while the reports are running.
- corresation 13y ago
  Aligning operating hours with when you have active staff monitoring and responding would be a reasonable assumption.
cperciva 13y ago
The Canada Revenue Agency's web apps are closed overnight too (albeit only for 3 hours). My understanding from talking to one of their sysadmins is that they use this time to perform backups and software upgrades because it's less error-prone than trying to do those "live".
- Frozenlock 13y ago
  They also only support IE. (Or at least they did last year.) You can also find some documentation speaking about Netscape. http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/ntcs/scrty_tls-eng.html http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/ntcs/scrty_tls-eng.html
  - cperciva 13y ago
    I've never had any problems using using Chrome on the CRA website.

by sheetjs 13y ago

jliptzin 13y ago

Is there a good reason to do this? I'm actually curious

ChuckMcM 13y ago
In Nevada (where I pay my corporate taxes) it was claimed that hours restrictions were mandated by law ("No part of the office can be open outside of the following hours" kind of thing) I have yet to find the statute though that says that. I agree it is a very weird thing.
ForHackernews 13y ago
I guess it gives you a free maintenance window every night.
8_hours_ago 13y ago
Not that this is a good reason, but one possibility is that the backend could require human interaction. Perhaps when the form gets submitted it gets automatically sent to a printer where a person manually files it. I could see a process like that showing up on http://thedailywtf.com http://thedailywtf.com ...
eli 13y ago
Define "good." It's pretty common when you've got a mainframe-type system that needs to do a bunch of batch processing and report generation. It's an excellent way to ensure that no data will be altered while the reports are running.
corresation 13y ago
Aligning operating hours with when you have active staff monitoring and responding would be a reasonable assumption.

cperciva 13y ago

The Canada Revenue Agency's web apps are closed overnight too (albeit only for 3 hours). My understanding from talking to one of their sysadmins is that they use this time to perform backups and software upgrades because it's less error-prone than trying to do those "live".

Frozenlock 13y ago
They also only support IE. (Or at least they did last year.) You can also find some documentation speaking about Netscape. http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/ntcs/scrty_tls-eng.html http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/ntcs/scrty_tls-eng.html
- cperciva 13y ago
  I've never had any problems using using Chrome on the CRA website.