If I owe federal taxes this year, do I have to pre-pay additional taxes for next year?

[DavidD66]

No.  If you have a balance due on your 2024 tax return, you may want to make estimated tax payments so don't have a balance due when you file your 2025 tax return, but you do not have to.  You should also consider adjusting your withholding, if you are W-2 employee.   I recommend you use one, or both of the following tools to determine the correct amount to have withheld and adjust your W-4.  It won't be any help for 2024 taxes, but it can prevent you from owing any tax on your 2025 return.  

TurboTax W-4 Calculator 2024

IRS Tax Withholding Estimator

[Liz76]

Not necessarily. It depends on if you will owe taxes next year. If you had an unusual event that caused you to owe this year and have not owed taxes in the past, you may not owe more taxes next year. If your tax bill has been steadily increasing over the years, you may want to change your withholding or make quarterly payments depending on how much you owed this year. If you owe less than $1,000 there is no fine and you may make that payment before or on April 15. If you owe more than $1,000, you may be assessed a fine. In that case you would benefit by making quarterly tax payments. Tell Turbo Tax to print your payment coupons and it will calculate the amounts for you. Double check the dates and submit to the appropriate address. 

[cheish]

Thank you. We did have more than expected capital gains - I don't know if that will happen next year but I certainly don't want to have to pay the additional estimated prepayments which are much higher than the  total we owe this year.  We do plan to change our withholdings so hopefully that will help in 2025 in case it's a good year. It seems crazy to me that you can get penalized for owing more than $1000 - I'm not psychic, I don't know until I do my taxes where I'll end up.  Thanks for the replies.