There will be no federal penalties for not paying in enough taxes during the year if (assuming no withholding)
1) timely estimated tax payments equal or exceed 90% of your 2024 tax or
2) timely estimated tax payments equal or exceed 100% of your 2023 tax (110% if your 2023 adjusted gross income was more than $150K) or
3) your total taxes are less than $1,000
the lower of 1 or 2 is your required annual income tax payments. 1 is difficult to know until the year end so generally option 2 is the safer option. under the simplified method 25% of the estimate taxes must be paid in each quarter by 4/18, 6/15, 9/15 and 1/15/24.
failing this and being subject to penalties you can use the annualized installment income method.
this method requires knowing your income and deductions thru 3/31, then 5/31, then 8/31, and finally year end which should be the same as the tax return. the income is annualized. taxes are computed on the annualized income and then de- annualized. your tax payments for each period must equal or exceed these amounts to avoid penalties.
form 2210 page 3
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f2210.pdf
these are minimums. nothing prevents you from paying more than the minimums.
