Need help with IRS Direct Pay for estimated taxes

H

harllee

Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Joined
Oct 11, 2017
Messages
5,320
Location
Chapel Hill, NC
I am helping my 90 year old mother simplify her finances. She had been paying her estimated income taxes by mailing a check. I told her we could do it online. I paid her state tax estimate online with no problem. I tried to pay her federal estimate using IRS direct pay and could not do it. The first time I tried it said her identity could not be verified. I double checked all the info to make sure it was identical to her 2021 tax return and tried again. This time it said I had incorrectly entered her SS number with hyphens. I entered the number with no hyphens but the site automatically inserted hyphens. I tried using both Safari and Firefox browsers, no success. I also tried my iPad, no success.

Any suggestions?
 
I use Direct Pay on an iPad - Safari browser - without issues.
 
The EFTPS requires a PIN which is mailed to you and takes weeks. FYI
 
If she has RMDs greater than her taxes, she could have it withheld from that. That automatically is treated as if it was even throughout the year. At least for Fidelity, it was just a couple clicks, no other account/logins required. Easier than Easy peasy! :)

-ERD50
 
Writing a check and mailing it to the IRS with your SS # and Form indicated (1040) works too. But it sounds like that is what she currently is doing.
 
harllee said:
I am helping my 90 year old mother simplify her finances. She had been paying her estimated income taxes by mailing a check. I told her we could do it online. I paid her state tax estimate online with no problem. I tried to pay her federal estimate using IRS direct pay and could not do it. The first time I tried it said her identity could not be verified. I double checked all the info to make sure it was identical to her 2021 tax return and tried again. This time it said I had incorrectly entered her SS number with hyphens. I entered the number with no hyphens but the site automatically inserted hyphens. I tried using both Safari and Firefox browsers, no success. I also tried my iPad, no success.

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

we use EFTPS for federal estimated taxes.
https://www.eftps.com/eftps/
 
COcheesehead said:
The EFTPS requires a PIN which is mailed to you and takes weeks. FYI
Click to expand...

That will be the problem with the EFTPS, the PIN will be mailed to mother's house and I live about and hour and a half away. I guess she could read the PIN to me over the phone and I could finish setting it up online (mother is not computer literate). I wonder if the PIN would be mailed in time to pay her 9/15 estimate?
 
ERD50 said:
If she has RMDs greater than her taxes, she could have it withheld from that. That automatically is treated as if it was even throughout the year. At least for Fidelity, it was just a couple clicks, no other account/logins required. Easier than Easy peasy! :)

-ERD50
Click to expand...

Good idea, that is what I do for myself but mother has no RMD. I guess I could have it withheld from her SS but she counts on the SS deposit for her spending money.
 
aja8888 said:
Writing a check and mailing it to the IRS with your SS # and Form indicated (1040) works too. But it sounds like that is what she currently is doing.
Click to expand...

Yes, that is what she has been doing but keeping up with it and writing and mailing the check is getting too much for her. I am trying to do more for her and simplify things. We have almost all of her bills on automatic payment, the tax estimate is one she has still been writing a check for and I am trying to eliminate that.
 
Has anyone had any experience paying Federal taxes by credit card? Mother has a cash back credit card. I know there is a 2% fee for using a credit card for paying federal taxes but she gets about that in cash back so it could be a wash.
 
I was rejected from EFTPS twice. There is no way to find out why and fix it. So I just mail them a check.
 
harllee said:
Gumby did you try IRS direct pay?
Click to expand...

No, I didn't. I read about their problems last year and decided that I would try to help by filing electronically for the first time in my life. But they made that impossible, so I'm done with them. The can suck on paper for the rest of my life.
 
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Gumby said:
No, I didn't. I read about their problems last year and decided that I would try to help by filing electronically for the first time in my life. But they made that impossible, so I'm done with them. The can suck on paper for the rest of my life.
Click to expand...

What will you do when you are 90 like my mother and can't write the check anymore? Do you have a dutiful daughter like me that will figure it out for you?
:rolleyes:
 
harllee said:
What will you do when you are 90 like my mother and can't write the check anymore? Do you have a dutiful daughter like me that will figure it out for you?
:rolleyes:
Click to expand...
I will pay someone to do it for me. People usually only get one chance to make me angry. I gave them two.
 
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harllee said:
I am helping my 90 year old mother simplify her finances. She had been paying her estimated income taxes by mailing a check. I told her we could do it online. I paid her state tax estimate online with no problem. I tried to pay her federal estimate using IRS direct pay and could not do it. The first time I tried it said her identity could not be verified. I double checked all the info to make sure it was identical to her 2021 tax return and tried again. This time it said I had incorrectly entered her SS number with hyphens. I entered the number with no hyphens but the site automatically inserted hyphens. I tried using both Safari and Firefox browsers, no success. I also tried my iPad, no success.

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Try a tax return from an earlier year. The IRS is still backed up and it's possible that her 2021 return isn't available for validation, or if she filed on paper, maybe there was a transcription error when it was entered into the IRS systems.

This is not one of those validations that's connecting to a credit service or id.me or anything like that; it's simply matching whatever's on a past tax return so just getting the name, address and SSN to exactly match whatever is in the IRS' system is enough.
 
cathy63 said:
Try a tax return from an earlier year. The IRS is still backed up and it's possible that her 2021 return isn't available for validation, or if she filed on paper, maybe there was a transcription error when it was entered into the IRS systems.

This is not one of those validations that's connecting to a credit service or id.me or anything like that; it's simply matching whatever's on a past tax return so just getting the name, address and SSN to exactly match whatever is in the IRS' system is enough.
Click to expand...
They at least should have a number to call to talk to a human being, figure out why there is not a match and help you fix it. But they don't. I can see why people object to giving the IRS more money, because they appear to be a pack of screwups who don't care about people who actually pay the taxes.
 
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Gumby said:
They at least should have a number to call to talk to a human being, figure out why there is not a match and help you fix it. But they don't. I can see why people object to giving the IRS more money, because they appear to be a pack of screwups who don't care about people who actually pay the taxes.
Click to expand...

Another possibility is they have been underfunded for so many years they haven't been able to hire enough people or modernize their systems and are so overwhelmed they can barely function.

Thought this was an interesting look inside an IRS processing center: Why the IRS Needs $80 Billion
 
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If they want to get rid of all that paper, then they should prioritize enabling people to do things electronically. But a system that just generates a paper error letter saying "your information doesn't match" without identifying more precisely what the mismatch is or giving you any way to resolve it, is a system doomed to failure. Before they use that money to hire more auditors, they ought to fix their system.
 
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