The program produces these forms as a convenience for you to make the payments. You are not locked into those specific payments. The program will produce them automatically if you owed tax as the government requires you to withhold enough tax to cover your tax liability or make estimated tax payments. If you don't have enough withholding and you don't make estimated tax payments, then the IRS can charge you with an underpayment penalty.
If you owed tax this year because of a one-time event and you won't owe next year, then you can decline to send any payments. You can also decline to send the payments even if you will owe tax next year, but you may be assessed an underpayment penalty. You can also adjust the amount of the payment at any time (higher or lower depending on anticipated income during the year) and you can pay directly online.
If you have already filed, then you can use the steps below to revisit just that portion of the program. You can tell it that you don't expect that income again and it will readjust the payments. Though, if you don't expect to owe at all for next year because your withholding typically covers your normal tax due, then you can just throw the ES forms in the trash and forget about it.
You can get back into your return but you will want to be careful not to change anything besides the estimated tax section. Here is how -
- Log into your account (make sure correct username)
- On the homepage, click the Taxes tab and then My Tax Timeline
- Scroll down to the section below your 2016 return entitled "Some Other Things you Can Do"
- Click "Add a State"
- This will allow you back into your return without amending (you don't need to actually add a state)
- This should bring you to a new homepage welcome screen
- Click Federal taxes > Other Tax Situations > Other Tax Forms > Form W4 and Estimated Taxes
- Follow the prompts and you will be asked a series of questions. The program will base the estimated payments off this years return, but you can make those adjustments.
- After you have made the adjustments, if you are not prompted to print out fresh ES forms, then go to My Account > Print Center. Follow the prompts to download a new pdf and you can select the 1040 ES forms for printing.
You can view more information about this penalty and estimated taxes in general at the links below.
https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc306.html
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/estimated-taxes
https://www.irs.gov/payments
