Individuals generally have to make estimated tax payments if they expect to owe tax of $1,000 or more when their return is filed. So, if the short-term gains, combined with your other income, will create a situation where you will owe over $1,000 when you file your return, you should make estimated tax payments.
Note that you can fulfill this obligation by having increased withholdings from your W2 or 1099R distributions - enough to cover the tax liability of the other income, instead of paying quarterly estimates. So, for example, if I had a W2 job and during the year I sold stock that will cause me to owe over $1,000 when I file my taxes, I can choose increase the federal and state withholdings from my paycheck to cover the additional taxes on those sales.
Otherwise, you should pay estimated quarterly tax payments. To do so, you may send estimated tax payments with Form 1040-ES by mail, or you can pay online, by phone or from your mobile device using the IRS2Go app. You can also make your estimated tax payments through an IRS online account, where you can see your payment history and other tax records.
You cannot make estimated tax payments to the IRS via TurboTax. Additionally, the only time gains are downloadable into TurboTax is when they are reported on year-end tax reporting forms, so you cannot download your monthly or quarterly brokerage statements into TurboTax to generate an estimate of the capital gains and losses. You can, however, use our Tax Calculators to enter information from your brokerage statements (and other income sources) to help calculate if, and how much, you need to pay in estimated quarterly taxes.
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