MargaretL
Expert Alumni

Get your taxes done using TurboTax

It really does depend on your situation.   The rule is that you must pay your taxes as you go. If at filing time, you haven't paid enough taxes through withholding or quarterly estimated payments, you may have to pay a penalty for underpayment. But if you are certain that your other withholdings will cover your self-employment income, and in fact it does, then you won't be subject to the penalty. 

If you answer NO to all the questions below, you must make estimated tax payments:

  1. Do you expect to owe less than $1,000 in taxes for the tax year after subtracting your federal income tax withholding from the total amount of tax you expect to owe this year? If so, you're safe—you don't need to make estimated tax payments.
  2. Do you expect your federal income tax withholding (plus any estimated taxes paid on time) to amount to at least 90 percent of the tax that you will owe for this tax year? If so, then you're in the clear, and you don't need to make estimated tax payments.
  3. Do you expect that your income tax withholding will be at least 100 percent of the tax on your previous year's return? Or, if your adjusted gross income (Form 1040, line 37) on your tax return was over $150,000 ($75,000 if you're married and file separately), do you expect that your income tax withholding will be at least 110 percent of the tax you owed in tax for the previous year? If so, then you're not required to make estimated tax payments.

Note: You may want to go through Other Tax Situations>Other Tax forms> Form W-2 and Estimated Taxes to help you determine how much you want to pay... program calculates the amounts based on your 2016 information, you would have to make adjustments of your income and deductions so that TurboTax can recalculate your estimated payments for 2017...

More information: https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Small-Business-Taxes/Estimated-Taxes--How-to-Determin...

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