Estimating Taxes for Sole Proprietor when Married Filing Jointly

[selfemptaxes]

How do I estimate the amount of quarterly tax I am responsible for as an independent contractor (sole proprietor - no business) when I will file Married - Filing Jointly?  I am the independent contractor who will receive a 1099 and my spouse continues to be a W-2 employee who is already getting tax withheld via his employer.  The calculators all ask for our Federal Adjusted Gross Income from our last return, but that is a total for the both of us - it doesn't seem right that I would have to pay a quarterly payment estimated on both of our incomes when mine is the only self employed income in question.  Especially when his income and tax responsibility is much higher than mine.  Can I estimate based on my own income from the last return somehow?

EDIT: I should have mentioned - this is the first year I will be an independent contractor so this is new territory for us.

[JBedford · Accepted solution]

Hi, @selfemptaxes , thanks for the question!

The bare minimum you should pay is 100% of your 2022 tax liability from Line 24 of your Form 1040. If you make over $150,000 if married filing jointly in self-employment income, then you should pay 110% of that number. You would pay this in four quarterly payments of 25% (or 27.5%) each. This will allow you to avoid an underpayment penalty. Also, don't forget to count any other tax payments you make. For example, if you have tax withheld from a job. This will reduce the amount you need to pay. So another way of thinking about it is that you should consider all income from all sources for both of you, but also all tax payments. 

Hope this helps, please let me know if not!

[selfemptaxes]

Thanks @JBedford! 

This independent contractor job is my sole job - full time -  so I don't have withholding for myself for any other work.

To clarify - I need to use our joint income and tax liability from 2022, multiply by the 110% as we are over $150k to get the total estimated tax amount for this year, subtract what is being withheld by my spouse's employer,  then divide that remainder by 4 for each quarter to get my personal estimated tax responsibility.

Am I understanding that correctly? 

[JBedford]

You are, @selfemptaxes !