Paying quarterly taxes for two self employed people for 2020- married filing jointly

[Deepat2]

My husband has always been self employed. I have been W2 until Nov 2020 and self employed since Nov. 

I was told I need to pay quarterly taxes for this last quarter that I became an independent contractor, by Jan 15 2021. 

However, I didn't know all this time we were paying penalties these past years from husband not paying quarterly taxes. 

I'm confused as to how I go about making this upcoming quarterly tax payment. Should I overpay to try to cover what my husband should have been paying for the past 4 quarters for him? If so, do I do this all under my IRS online account?  

[Carl]

I didn't know all this time we were paying penalties these past years from husband not paying quarterly taxes.

I am assuming you are just now discovering that for tax years 2019 and before, you've been paying penalties on the husband's businses every year, because you wern't paying your self employment taxes quarterly. I further assume you actually paid them too.

I'm confused as to how I go about making this upcoming quarterly tax payment. Should I overpay to try to cover what my husband should have been paying for the past 4 quarters for him? If so, do I do this all under my IRS online account?

Yes, you should pay the quarterly taxes for all four quarters of 2020 *NOW*. The 4th quarter payment is due by Jan 15th. You can label the entire year's quarterly tax payment as a 4th quarter payment and you'll be fine.

If you will "IN FACT" be filing a joint tax return for 2020, then it doesn't matter whose SSN you pay those taxes under really. But I would highly recommend you pay them using your husband's SSN. No really viable reason for that recommendation. It's just the way I would do it in your shoes. Yes, you can combine the payments for both your business and your husband's business as a single 4th quarter payment *PROVIDED* you will *DEFINITELY* be filing a joint return where each of you will have a SCH C included for each of your separate businesses.

[Deepat2]

Oh my gosh, you are amazing!! Thank you for your on-point answer! You have answered what I could not find a clear answer to on the IRS website or elsewhere these past few days! Thank you, thank you!

[Carl]

Just remember this.

Whatever SSN you pay with, your payment will be credited to that SSN only.

But when you file your *JOINT* tax return, all payments made by both or either tax filer on that tax return will be applied to the JOINT tax liability.

I don't know if this would be of any help or not. But there's another way to handle it for the 2021 tax year that you might want to consider.
See https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/filing-and-paying-your-business-taxes for more details on how you can set things up so that each business pays their own quarterly taxes using the business EIN. I do it that way to keep things separate from the personal W-2 income and the taxes withheld on the W-2 income. Not really a requirement, necessity or anything. It just makes my own book keeping between the W-2 income and the SCH C income easier to track.