Estimated tax payment vouchers for 2026 not populating in TurboTax Deluxe desktop

[PiSigma]

I need to do estimated tax payments for 2026, having just retired. I have entered all of my expected income amounts and the worksheet shows what I feel is the correct amount of taxes I will owe. But none of the vouchers are being filled out. When I get to the last step in this section of Other Tax Situations it asks which Method Do You Want to Use? I select 100% of tax on your estimated 2026 estimated taxable income. The next page comes up with No payments. Based on your entries, you have no estimated tax payment liability. We have not prepared vouchers for you. But I do owe more than $1000. If I look at the Est Tax Options worksheet form it shows in the second section the correctly calculated amount I will owe. But on the next line it has Expected Withholding for 2026 (2025 Actual Withholding) and it has put in a number much greater than what I will actually owe. It thinks I am already having enough withheld even though that is not the case. I think this is why it is not creating the vouchers. This number should be zero as I am not having any sources withhold anything. How do I fix this and get rid of the Expected Withholding value that is not happening? 

[LaShaunA3]

You need to manually change the federal withholding amount to $0 in the worksheet.

1. Go to Other Tax Situations → Form W-4 and Estimated Taxes → Estimated Taxes for 2026.
2. Look for a screen that says “Enter your expected withholding for 2026”
3. Manually change the federal withholding amount to 0 instead of the number that is there.

[PiSigma]

Thanks LaShaunA3. When I go to Form W-4 and Estimated Taxes and click update I do not see Estimated Taxes 2026. Going through the steps I do not see Enter your Expected Withholding for 2026 either. But I did figure this out. When I first click on Update for the Form W-4 and Estimated Taxes section the first question is a choice between W-4 and Estimated. I was selecting Estimated since, per the instructions, I have no wages as I am now retired. I do not have any withholding done from any of my other income sources so I have no need to create W-4s for them. In following the steps after selecting Estimated their are none which allow you to change the federal withholding amount. I just tried selecting W-4 and running through that. You will come to a page that will ask for your Pay Period information. Input $0 for total salary received so far this year and 0 for the number of Paychecks you have received this year. You can choose anything for the drop down list box for how often you are paid. This will then zero out the withholding value that was previously being populated in my worksheet. I now have the correct vouchers. Those instructions at the first W-4/Estimated question are very misleading. I should not select the W-4 choice but that is the only way to make this work. 

[Jack_M]

I'm having exactly the same problem you have described, i.e,, even though Turbo Tax calculated I have Taxable income in 2026 and a tax liability, it will not produce the Estimated Tax vouchers because it assumed that the Federal tax withheld in 2026 will be the same as it was in 2025.  And that is not the case.  I will have no Federal Tax withheld from W-2s in 2026 whereas I did in 2025.

I may not completely be understanding your solution.  You suggested selecting W-4, which I have done.   Ultimately, it results in the same Taxable Income and estimate tax payment as it did when I had selected "Estimates" (instead of W-4).  And now TT produces the correct W-4 form;  however, like you, I'm not interested in W-4.  I just want the estimated vouchers.  How do you get to the point of having Turbo Tax fill out the Estimated Tax Payment voucher if you select "W-4"?   Even when I first go thru all the screens using W-4 selection and then start over selecting the "Estimates" selection, TT does not generate any Estimated Tax voucher forms.

[Jack_M]

OK, as I was writing up my last post, it dawned on me that I might be able to edit the field that is causing the problem.  And sure enough that worked.  Here are the steps I performed:

1)  Go to the Forms

2)  Open up the "Est Tax Option" form

3) In the section called "amount of Estimated Taxes to pay in 2026", there is a line called "Expected Withholding for 2026".   This is the line that is preventing Turbo Tax from generating the Estimate Tax vouchers and it's because the line has been populated with the tax that was withheld in 2025.   Since this amount is larger than the estimated taxes I owe, Turbo Tax believes there is no reason for paying estimated taxes.  

4)  The solution is to override the value that appears on the "Expected Withholding for 2026" line.   I entered a value close to zero, because I will have some taxes withheld.

5)  Suddenly four new forms appear:  one for each of the four payment vouchers:  "Form 1040ES 1" thru "Form 1040ES 4".

[PiSigma]

That's OK @Jack_M , I don't understand why my solution works (for me) either 😀. I should not be choosing W-4 on that first question of this section as I am Estimating. I do not have any withholding from any of my 2026 income sources like I did in 2025 as I have now retired and wanted to do this first year of retirement doing strictly estimated tax payments. It seems like the easier way to do this. But doing it this way did zero out the 2025 withholding for me when I filled out the Pay Period questions with zeros. The questions really don't directly deal with any withholding so it is odd these zero out the 2025 withholding on my "Est Tax Option" form. It is odd it didn't do the same for you. But I did leave it selected as W-4. TurboTax really needs to clean this up.

[PiSigma]

Funny thing for me on this it I also tried doing the same before finding my W-4 selection trick. I could not change the 2025 Withholding on the "Est Tax Option" form. It could not be manually changed. You are correct that this is what is keeping TT from creating the vouchers. It thinks I am already having withholding for 2026 that is greater than my estimated tax total. Buggy stuff here TurboTax.

[PiSigma]

One thing that my last comment screws up is by making the W-4 selection the "ES & W4 Wks" form has the wrong selection here:

 

If you check the "By making estimated tax payments" above it will just go back to adding the 2025 Withholding and your vouchers disappear again. I am just going to fill out the 1040-ES I downloaded from the IRS and fill that out. My understanding is none of the Estimated Tax forms or worksheets get e-filed when you file your 2025 return anyway. I still need to figure out if you need to send in the main 1040-ES before you start mailing vouchers or what. I'm hoping I can just pay each voucher online somehow. But I still need to read up on this. Then I have to deal with doing this for my North Carolina state taxes. They have a similar estimation form and process.

[ChuckA58RI]

This response from @LaShaunA3 is very helpful, but I also learned, when viewing the estimated tax form, you need to select "override the value" to modify the field  “Enter your expected withholding for 2026”.   This is clearly a shortcoming in the TurboTax user interface. TurboTax seems to be getting less user friendly over time. I expected better from Intuit, and I hope there will  be an update to address this bug.  Let's see if I can add a screenshot...'26 Estimated withholding override

[PiSigma]

Ah. Thank you @ChuckA58RI . I didn't see an override selection anywhere. I did try double clicking on that value but that didn't do anything. Just now I tried right clicking on it and Poof! a pop up menu where I could choose Override and I could change it. This is the correct way to fix it. You can still select Estimate instead of W-4 at the beginning of the TurboTax Step-by-step process as you wish and then just fix the worksheet. That Override function is not obvious.

[VolvoGirl]

@PiSigma   No you don’t have to send in a main 1040ES ahead of time.   And every year the IRS mails me 1040 ES forms prefilled with my personal info so I only need to write in the amount.   Then they fit in the envelopes.  

Or you can pay directly on the IRS website https://www.irs.gov/payments

Be sure to pick the right kind of payment and year.....2026 Estimate

[Montanagal1]

My Montana State estimated tax vouchers did not print.  Rather I got 4 vouchers totally the amount of my 2025 tax payment. This included my small amount due balance, plus the estimated payments I previously made.  Not looking at the vouchers closely, I paid that amount as my 2026 estimated.  Needless to say, because it was not the correct voucher form the state returned my check.  On the Turbo Tax website I now see that the estimated state tax vouchers show "unsupported".  Never had this problem in previous years.

[PiSigma]

Thank you for the update @VolvoGirl . That is exactly what I will do.

[PiSigma]

Thanks @Montanagal1 . I am also having to do that for my situation in North Carolina. Right now my estimated payment amounts look too high. I still need to go over the instructions for that form from NCDOR to see what is wrong. These estimated payment sections seem to be a bit of an afterthought for TurboTax. The instructions are non-existent or incomplete. This is my first year doing estimated payments so I'm figuring it all out for the first time.

[wjbucey]

Those choices are not options on the desktop version.   As others have said, Turbotax is inaccurately taking the 2025 withholding as the expected withholding in 2026 and there is no way to delete this even if you tell Turbo tax NOT to copy 2025 information.   The Est Tax Options form is not editable either.  This is a Turbotax problem.  I, like the other person, had to fake a 2026 W-4 calculation (using 0) to get it to put $0 as the expected withholding in 2026 rather than the 2025 actuals.