I had a job during late 2017, where my employer would not withhold taxes. Shall I send IRS a 1040-ES "Paymnt Vouchr 4" with a check? I estimate I owe $1140 to IRS

[vabhijit]

NOTE: I had received a tax refund in 2016

[Hal_Al · Accepted solution]

Simple answer: Yes, send the IRS a 1040-ES "Payment Voucher 4" with a check for $1140.Essentially estimated payments are optional, at least the first year. You may owe an underpayment penalty if you don’t make payments. It’s roughly 4% of the under paid tax. You should pay in quarterly estimated taxes if you don't have enough withholding taken out to cover the tax on all your income.
You should make estimated tax payments for the current tax year if both of the following apply:
- 1. You expect to owe at least $1,000 in tax for the current tax year, after subtracting your withholding and credits. 
- 2. You expect your withholding and credits to be less than the smaller of: 90% of the tax to be shown on your current year’s tax return, or  100% of the tax shown on your prior year’s tax return. (Your prior year tax return must cover all 12 months.)

If your goal is just to avoid the underpayment penalty, then paying 100% of the prior year tax liability is the “safe haven”.

The fact that you got a refund, the previous year is not relevant, unless you got a refund of ALL your withholding.


Or you can obtain  blank IRS Form 1040-ES from the IRS. The form and instructions are at this link:   https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040es.pdf

[vabhijit]

Thank you!