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Quarterly tax payments

You ever have one of those things that never seems exactly right to you so you always have to look it up but you still can never seem to get it straight in your head. Well this is exactly what happens to me WRT paying your quarterly taxes or at least when you're supposed to pay your quarterly taxes.

According to

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The payments are made with Form 1040-ES. The payment due dates for an individual are the following:

First installment April 15th Second installment June 15th Third installment September 15th Fourth installment January 15th

Now correct me if I'm wrong but isn't quarterly taxes supposed to be paid by quarter and isn't a quarter, WRT a year, supposed to be 3 months? Now I can understand that from January 15 -> April 15 there are

3 months (Jan 15 -> Feb 15 = 1 month, Feb 15 -> March 15 = 2 months and March 15 -> April 15 = 3 months).

But April 15 -> June 15 is only 2 months is it not? I mean April 15 -> May 15 = 1 month and May 15 -> June 15 is, well only 2 months!

And June 15 -> September 15 is 3 months, but September 15 -> January 15 is 4 months!

Who came up with this wacky schedule and why doesn't anybody mention the fact that technically, these are not equally divided into real quarters...?

Reply to
Andrew DeFaria
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Hi, Andrew.

Congress.

You are NOT the first to asks this! Many people have asked. It has been in the Internal Revenue Code for at least 50 years. For the only answer that counts, see the previous answer.

The closest we can get to a logical answer is what the other Andrew said: We don't pay these taxes based on our income for 3 months. We pay for the full year based on income for the full year. But we cut our estimate of the annual amount into quarters for the convenience of the government - so they don't have to wait until next April to get the full amount. It's all part of the "pay as you go" requirement enacted by Congress about the time I was born. Wage-earners have it deducted from every paycheck. The rest of us mail it in. On 4 dates that are NOT always a quarter-year apart we mail in a quarter of our estimated annual taxes.

We can't explain it. All we can do is learn it and live with it. :^{

RC

Reply to
R. C. White

When I took my one and only course on taxation about 5 years ago, the first thing the instructor said was to throw out all logic and reason when it comes to the tax laws and, to a lesser extent, applicability to individual rulings. There are SO many different people, jurisdictions, special interest groups, demands, etc., it's nuts trying to find the logic in things.

For example, the IRS raised the rate of mileage reimbursement for driving one does for your employer (with lots of caveats) . But *not* for miles driven in the same car by the same person if for charitable purposes...why? The former apparently the IRS has control over, the latter it's Congress. So go figure.

Reply to
Andrew

While you're on the subject - I seem to recall that when importing estimated tax payments from Quicken, Turbo Tax doesn't import payments made after December 31. So you have to enter the January 15 payment by hand.

Is this still true?

Andrew DeFaria wrote:

Reply to
Walt Bilofsky

Andrew DeFaria wrote in news:496d584a$0$48214$ snipped-for-privacy@news.qwest.net:

If you pay estimated taxes using the "annualized income" method, you figure it based on 3, 5, 8, and 12 months. Usually annualized works out best for me, but this year due to forces beyond my control I find that my income since 9/1 is a bit reduced and I don't have to make a payment at all. But had I used the 90% rule I would have paid less on my first 3 estimates.

scott s. .

Reply to
scott s.

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