I don't think anyone can help me as they don't seem to understand what I am saying.
I am not employed and have no withholding. I am 73 and retired, haven't worked for money since about 2002 and even then was very minimal as a massage therapist and I didn't make enough to pay any taxes at all. (I have a few permanent partial disabilities that have made earning money pretty dicey, including that in 1996 I was thrown from a rearing horse who then fell over backwards and landed on my chest, but many of my problems predated that dramatic event.) Most of my life I haven't earned enough to pay taxes, though in a few years I have had to. So nothing in particular has changed for me, except that during the past year there were requirements by the credit union I use, to have direct deposits to my checking account totaling $750 per month. So in addition to my regular small social security of $521 deposited directly to my checking account, last year I arranged to receive $250 per month as part of the RMD from my beneficial Ira and get the rest of the RMD as a once yearly deposit. Prior to that I was just getting the one-time yearly RMD deposit, plus the small monthly deposit from Social Security. I haven't been told by the IRS that I owe any sort of penalty for failure to pay estimated taxes, ever, in any year, and I've paid more in taxes maybe 3 times since 2000 when my dad died, in other years than I owed this time for 2024, so I still don't know why the website informed me that I will owe penalty & fine for not paying quarterly taxes. It was left up to me to either use the IRS form to calculate that amount OR to just let the IRS figure it out and send me the bill. So I chose the latter since by that time my eyes and back were killing me and I couldn't possibly fill out another form or do any math, I was just too exhausted & hungry! And the big puzzle is that on my online IRS account info, there is NOTHING stated that I owe this to the IRS, including no mention at all of any penalty for failure to pay estimated tax for 2024. So I'm just going to wait and see what happens, and if they do send me a letter saying that I owe whatever amount, I will at that time see if they will forgive me because I didn't even know I needed to pay quarterly taxes, as I never had before and was never informed by the IRS that I needed to do that, nor was I informed by any website I have used to file my returns that I needed to do that...until, mysteriously, this time. I guess I have to get over caring why this has happened out of the blue, give up needing an answer, and just deal with it at the point of getting an IRS notice in the mail (which, for all I know, may never even come.) And pay my quarterly taxes in 2025, I guess I should do that now for the first part of 2025 since I NOW know about this. But I don't know how to do that so that's something else to go on my already overwhelming miles-long to-do list. Maybe I'll someday manage to learn how to fit in regularly eating and sleeping while also trying to handle all the many tasks of my life LOL (including caring for 3 rescued horses and 3 other pets.
I sure wish I could afford to pay someone else to do this kind of crap for me, I hate doing myself so very much. I am quite certain that I have ADHD though have not sought diagnosis, and this kind of thing for me is so incredibly stultifying and overwhelming, partly because I have always utterly despised and resented having to fill out "forms" of any kind whether online or with paper and pen. It's worse online because I also intensely dislike using electronic technology, it's confusing and intimidating, definitely don't want a smartphone and have never even owned a television! I find it incomprehensible that there are plenty of people who actually do exist, who actually do ENJOY being CPAs, computer programmers, financial advisors, and the like. All that linear left-brain number crunching stuff is like visiting some ring of Hell, to me. I mean, we need to be able to do some of that to effectively manage our daily lives and keep our checkbooks balanced and live within our means (I can do that easily), but to actively CHOOSE to do that sort of activity for 8 or more hours every day, for years on end, as a career..........baffling.
I'd MUCH rather clean up horse manure all day. Or write poetry. Or give someone a massage. Or prepare natural remedies for my animals' various needs. Numbers and forms and electronic technology are definitely not about life and feeling and love.
