Tax Withholding by Quarter Question

[beachcat00]

Hello, 

My daughter had self employment/business income for a few months in 2023, in which she did not pay attention to making the estimated state tax payments. She later switched in 2023 from self employed to a W-2 employee. She came to a screen when working on her taxes  that mentioned her underpayment penalty of $80.

The section she/I are not sure about  is the  "Tax Withholding by Quarter" See data below. We are not sure what to put in each date selection before proceeding.

*Just for reference she only had self employment income from (1/2023-5/2023) if that is relevant to this. 

From Turbo Tax Screen: 

Enter your total withholding for all four quarters. Do not include any estimates. Enter zeros for periods for which there was no withholding. 

Notes: The total withholding you enter below must equal $1978 

1/1/2023-4/15/2023 =

4/16/2023-7/15/2023=

7/16/2023-9/15/2023=

9/16/2023-12/31/2023=

Thank you for any advice! 

[DavidD66 · Accepted solution]

It sounds like you are in the input section for your state's Underpayment of Estimated Tax, which is usually optional.  You can enter withholding, earnings, and estimated payments by quarter as an alternative method of calculating the penalty.  If you don't have the information (check stubs) to enter the quarterly withholding amounts just enter 25% of the total withholding of $1,978 for each quarter.