Can I make one lump sum payment to Estimated Taxes by the January deadline and not face penalties since I owed no tax last year?

[campbellking]

I am self employed and owed no tax last year but made more income this year. I had planned to make quarterly estimated tax payments this year, but did not. Can I make one lump sum payment by the January deadline and not face penalties since I owed no tax last year?

[TomYoung]

If your tax liability last year - which is line 63 on Form 1040 for most people - was really $0 and that tax return covered a full 12 month period, then I see no need to make any estimated tax payments at all.  You simply won't be charged an underpayment penalty as long as you pay your 2016 income tax liability on time. 

If by "owed no tax last year" you are really saying that you didn't have to send a check in with your income tax return, (maybe even received a refund), that's not the same as having a 2015 total tax of $0, so in that case you should, probably, make an estimated tax payment by the January 2016 deadline.  That's not guaranteed to have you not face any underpayment penalties, since the penalty is calculated on a quarter-by-quarter basis, but it should server to minimize any penalty.

Tom Young

[Bobh]

Hello all:

Can anyone tell me if I can pay my quarterly estimates off by making a single lump sum payment? None of the paynents would be late. 

Best wishes, BobH

[TomYoung]

@Bobh 

Of course you can pay all your estimated taxes up front in a lump sum.  The IRS isn't going to complain about that - the government needs the money!

[Remford]

Ever since the U.S. left the gold standard and “full faith and credit” became the dollar’s only underpinning, government has as much money as it decides to have, whenever it decides to have it.