Get your taxes done using TurboTax

This is hard to put in a short answer but the skinny is you should "catch up" with the payments as early as you can.  On the return you could still have an underpayment  penalty  even if you  get a refund of overpaid taxes  because the program & IRS will compute the taxes on a quarterly basis dividing the total annual income  evenly in forths.   So if you earn the income unevenly you can pay the estimates unevenly however you will need to file a 2210AI to explain why the payments were uneven  and how the income was uneven and remove/reduce  the underpayment penalty.

 

Instead of estimates paid quarterly you can increase withholdings from a job or pension/SS  as withholdings are considered evenly paid thru the tax year even if all of the withholding happens in December. 

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