1040ES Jan 15 payment vs 2024 tax filing payment

[lowtidesnook]

I'm running into a scenario not yet experienced.  I've made the April/June/Sept estimated payments, but not yet the Jan 15 2024 1040 ES.  I'm still waiting on an answers to multiple questions on tax treatment of 2 investments LTCG vs ordinary income rates.  I won't have my Vanguard year end statement until late Feb in batch 2 of their document dump past the 1/29 first batch which will also clear up a lot of things once in hand.  Also waiting on answer via an FBAR/Swiss Life annuity distribution with no accompanying 1099R.  

I was told by a friend yesterday that I can bypass the 1/15 1040 ES payment date *if* I file my taxes on time and make the payment at that time.  Hope I described this properly I'm not a skilled wordsmith.  Basically can I hold out beyond the 1/15 ES payment date until Vanguard comes back with my year end documents/hear back from CPA to load into TT and then pay at that time of filing?  

Thank you TT 

[SteamTrain]

@lowtidesnook 

From IRS Pub 505:

"January payment. If you file your 2024 Form 1040 or 1040-SR by January 31, 2025, and pay the rest of the tax you owe, you don’t need to make the payment due on January 15, 2025"

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Your issue will probably be that you won't be ready by 31 Jan 2025 to file, as you may not have all your forms yet.  Others who have attempted this, found out too late, that certain tax forms they needed weren't ready in the software itself until sometime in Feb, and couldn't file by that deadline.

SO, Somehow, in the next week, you need to make a gross estimate of what your final 4th Qtr estimate needs to be and make one by the 15th.   Not sure of what other stuff you might be dealing with, but, at least for Vanguard, I suspect you can see in your account, what distributions Vanguard made for the last quarter of 2024. 

[Opus 17]

Remember that if you over-pay your estimate, you get the difference back as a tax refund.  Yes, it's an interest-free loan to the IRS, but the underpayment penalty is about 1% per month of the amount owed (0.5% per month penalty plus 8% APR interest), so unless you have an investment that pays +12% APR, it will be cheaper in the long run to over pay the estimate.  

As stated, you can skip the 1/15 payment only if you file your complete return and pay in full by 1/31.  It's risky to wait because you don't know if you will have all your information by then (1099-B, etc.) and sometimes, some tax forms are delayed by the IRS or Turbotax for various reasons. 

[lowtidesnook]

Thanks for the reply been out of pocket.

So even though I made my April/June/Sept ES payments on time, given that one of my investment sales was in May I should have increased that June ES payment.   Waited for months to get an answer back from a CPA I hired to navigate my tax question(long term cap gains vs income tax rate) and I simply had a brain freeze thinking I could make up for it on my January 15 last ES payment.  Alas  I'll be making the full 'catch up' payment this week for Jan 15 and waiting for my penalty letter:/.  Lesson learned and thanks for the info....dumb on my part.