Estimated taxes on trading

[khuong5791]

1.    I began trading options and futures this month. When is the due date to pay estimate tax for the first quarter of 2024? Is it March 31?

2.    Since I’ve just began trading, how much estimated tax should I pay IRS? 15%, 20%, or 22%?

3.    I’ve Googled and found that there are different tax categories applied for earnings from trading (short term and long term). So, when I pay estimated tax, is there anything that I need to take into account? What’s your advice for me?

Tks. 

[RobertB4444 · Accepted solution]

The quarterly payment dates are April 15th, June 15th, September 15th and January 15th.  So your first estimated payment for 2024 is due April 15th.

Stock trading is taxed as regular income for anything that you have owned for less than a year.  If you are day trading then you probably won't have a lot of things that you are selling that will be held more than a year so you should set aside your regular income tax rate in payments and you'll be ahead of the game.  Remember, you'll only be taxed on the gains from the sales so you need to calculate those before you set aside a percentage to send in as an estimate.

@khuong109