Estimated Tax Payments 2020 for CA

[remapthesoul]

I live in CA, file MFJ, and went through the "estimated state taxes" section to calculate estimated 2020 tax payments, but the amount seems way off. I was a 1099 independent contractor all of 2019 and started a new, employed W2 position in Jan 2020. I was paid my last payments from the IC position in 2020, earning about $22,000 gross, hence the need to pay estimated state taxes in 2020 (right?). Turbotax is estimating that I will owe about $12,000 in taxes to the state of CA in 2020, but only around $4,000 in taxes Federal. This seems like way too much state tax! Have I made an error somewhere? Any help much appreciated. Thank you!

[ThomasM125]

The federal amount looks reasonable based on your self-employment income. The state must be wrong. Did you double up any income on the state return? Normally the state income comes from the federal entries, so you don't need to add anything in the way of state income.

[remapthesoul]

Thanks for your reply. I have not doubled up any income, as far as I can tell, since I let the federal entries carry over to the state side. The only things I can think of is that my CA AGI is incorrect or TurboTax is not taking into consideration my CA state withholdings for 2020. I've been trying to figure out my 2020 estimated CA AGI to double check TurboTax's work, but I can't figure out how to calculate it on my own.

[BillM223]

If you are using the Online product, do the following:

• navigate to your California interview in TurboTax
• look at Tax Tools (on the left)
• then click on Tools (below it),
• then click on View Tax Summary (center)

What is your California Adjusted Gross Income? Does it seem reasonable?

Now follow the list down until you get to Total Tax. Does that seem reasonable?

What is the entry for Tax payments? Are any listed? If no, then the estimated tax payments for California were not entered.

If you have the CD/download version of TurboTax, then you can go to Forms (upper right) and scroll down to the CA 540 and see the same numbers. 

NOTE: your 2020 CA withholdings will not appear on your 2019 tax return. Perhaps you meant something else.

[remapthesoul]

Thank you for the reply.

Yes, the 2019 CA AGI is reasonable, total tax is reasonable, and my estimated tax payments for 2019 are listed correctly. Any other tips or suggestions?

[remapthesoul]

Update: I went back through CA Form 540 and it looks like the expected 2020 CA state withholdings were not included in the calculation, so I added the estimated total for CA from my employed job and that gave me a reasonable 2020 estimated tax due. Thanks for your help!