It depends on when you had your $18k tax liability. The IRS has a pay-as-you-go system to prevent taxpayers from making one lump sum payment in January when they had a tax liability building up all year, the IRS computes interest on unpaid tax for each payment period.
If you won the lottery in the last quarter and owed $18k you will have no penalty if paying in January 2023.
If you won the lottery on Jan. 1, 2022, and owed $18k tax the whole year, the IRS will compute interest on unpaid tax for the first three quarters.
One way to get around this is to increase your withholding. Withholding is credited as if paid equally the whole year unless you choose otherwise. So if you withheld $18k in the last quarter, the IRS would backdate that and treat that as four payments of $4.5k.
@JKQ888
**Say "Thanks" by clicking the thumb icon in a post
**Mark the post that answers your question by clicking on "Mark as Best Answer"
