Unexpected Mid-Year Income

I have a full time job, but I unexpectedly made about $8000 freelancing mid year. It seems I should make estimated tax payments, but I don't see a good way to figure out how much to send to federal and state collections, make the payments, and document them. I'm in California.

posted

If you have last year's tax return, look at how much you paid the IRS and FTB as a percentage of your adjusted gross income, and apply those percentages to the $8000. That should get you close. A more sophisticated approach would be to look up your marginal tax rate based on your higher AGI for this year and apply those percentages to the $8000. You can get the tax rates by Googling that topic.