I've been self-employed for 15 years now. In my opinion (we all have one) using the worksheets is an absolute waste of your time and effort. If you expect your gross household income from all sources for the entire year to be less than $100,000, just send the IRS 20% of your gross business income each quarter and that's it. You'll be fine at tax filing time. If you expect to recieve more than $100,000 gross household income from all sources, then send the IRS 25% of your gross business earnings each quarter.
If you want, you can work the numbers through the worksheet if you desire. But you'll find that what you will be paying each quarter will be between 19% and 23% of the gross business income for that quarter. So that's why I don't waste my time with worksheets. I'm always within the threshhold to not have to pay any penalties for underpayment of quarterly taxes. Here's the rules on that.
If at tax filing time, you owe the IRS less than $1000 *or* less than 10% of your total tax liability for the year (whichever is *HIGHER*) then no underpayment penalties are assessed.
Sweet, simple, to the point.
