Turbotax can generate safe estimates. this means that if you pay the estimates timely and your withholding doesn't decrease, there will be no penalties for underpaying on a timely basis the minimum amount required yo avoid penalties even if your income jumps and you owe a lot. The thing is if you pay those estimates and your withholding doesn't decrease you will have been lending the IRS money interest free.
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here are the rules to avoid penalties for 2024
There will be no federal penalties for not paying in enough taxes during the year if withholding
1) and timely estimated tax payments equal or exceed 90% of your 2024 tax or
2) and timely estimated tax payments equal or exceed 100% of your 2023 tax (110% if your adjusted gross income was more than $150K) or
3) the balance due after subtracting taxes withheld from 90% of your 2024 tax is less than $1,000 or
4) your total taxes are less than $1,000
The lower of 1 or 2 is your required annual income tax payments. 1 is difficult to know until the year's end so generally option 2 is the safer option. under the simplified method 25% of the estimated taxes must be paid in each quarter by 4/15, 6/17, 9/16 and 1/15/25. unless you can show otherwise 25% of your annual withholding is assumed to occur in each period 3/31, 5/31, 8/31 and 12/31.
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Failing this and being subject to penalties you can use the annualized installment income method.
this method requires knowing your income and deductions thru 3/31, then 5/31, then 8/31, and finally tear end which should be the same as the tax return. the income is annualized. taxes are computed on the annualized income and then de-annualized. your tax payments for each period must equal or exceed these amounts to avoid penalties.
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form 2210 page 3
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f2210.pdf
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state laws vary
