IRS Form for Quarterly Tax Payment

No problem for me. Anything I send to them, including my return, I send by certified mail. So I know when it gets there and have a receipt that it did. Some times the old ways work just fine.
Yes; that works. But if THEY lose your check, they will charge you interest until you prove to them that you paid them on time. Unlikely inasmuch as they have a dedicated site for any correspondence which includes a check but still possible.

The other thing, which may be more likely is that if Direct Pay or EFTPS is set up in advance, if for some reason you are unable to write and send a check, the payment will go through. This actually happened to me for my Q4 ES payment in January. As luck would have it I had an ER visit that ended up with a surgical procedure and hospital stay. My Q4 ES payment went on the date I had specified in April, 2023.
 
It was mentioned upstream, but if you have problems setting up (or just don't want to) an EFTPS account, you don't need to resort to paper and snail mail.


Direct Pay gives you a receipt/documentation and it's instantaneous. No waiting/wondering to watch the check clear to tell if your mail got through. It won't let you schedule payments like EFTPS, but you aren't doing that with paper anyhow.

Yep, DirectPay for me.

No EFTPS until they take login.gov since I don't trust id.me.
 
We did the mail thing for years but have gone to paying online in the last couple of years.
Online paying is much better in our opinion.
Do recommend paying online
Great way to meet credit card minimum spend for sign up bonuses and you can do two per quarter. A good sign up bonus will get you across an ocean in the front of the plane so the small processing fee is worth it to us.
 
Use EFTPS and print a copy of the confirmation page for each payment to keep for your records if you wish.
 
I have paid online using EFTPS since 2011, easy peasy. I pay state estimated taxes online as well since 2011, first IN now NC.

Just started paying estimated taxes this year and I also use EFTPS. Also very easy. Well, the payment part is. I'm using the annualization method this year to do the actual calculations and it's a little tedious...

Cheers.
 
I've switched to the "take a tIRA withdrawal for taxes in December" strategy, so I no longer use quarterly payments.
 
I am retired and planning to do my first large roth conversion soon, and
will pay the taxes from my brokerage account.
Does it matter if I pay the tax immediately after I convert or wait for Sept. 16 quarterly
estimated date to pay the tax?
 
It's fine to wait until the quarterly taxes are due. Do be aware that if you are paying tax in unequal installments or mixing withholding and quarterly estimates, you will probably need to file Form 2210 and use Schedule AI to show that you don't owe an underpayment penalty.
 
Thank you Cathy. I am trying to avoid late fees from the IRS for underestimating tax this year, since I no longer have earned income in retirement.
However, DW is still employed, so I plan on using Direct Pay for my roth conversion.
 
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