Ask HN: How do you file your estimated taxes?

6 points by bennyjoseph 13 years ago | 5 comments

Any freelancers/consultants out there? How do you deal with paying quarterly estimated taxes? I could pay an accountant but it seems a bit expensive for something that should be pretty simple.

dangrossman 13 years ago |

Take last year's tax bill and divide by 4. If you pay as much in estimated taxes as the previous year's total taxes, there will be no underpayment penalty even if you owe more at the end of the year. If you end up earning less and have overpaid, you'll get a refund. You don't need an accountant to help with this.

Print out the 4 payment vouchers, write in the amount you're paying, mail it with your check by the quarterly due dates. The vouchers are the last two pages of this PDF:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040es.pdf

bennyjoseph 13 years ago | |

Very helpful. Thanks!

mapster 13 years ago |

I am doing this for the 1st time in 2013. Having paid my 2012 taxes (1040 schedule C) using turbotax, it helped me estimate quarterly payments based on 2012 earnings. If I make a lot more or a lot less by mid-year I can make adjustments.

I was hoping there was a light weight accounting app that would help me with bids/quotes, invoices, expenses, and taxes all under one roof on the cloud.

vlod 13 years ago |

I use http://outright.com for mine and it works nicely.

mapster 13 years ago | |

Looks interesting but am hesitant about if this is a 2 person shop that will not have the security in place to protect my data. Their video was very unspecific about features and benefits.