RunningBum
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2007
- Messages
- 13,492
That's what I've done. I'm making even quarterly payments based on what I owed last year. I'm converting my Roth to the same threshold as last year, so I should be close. If I have a little more dividends or CGs I'll owe a bit more but no penalty due to safe harbor. If I have less, I'll get a small refund. Since I did most of my conversion early in the year, it works out well to do it this way rather than estimate what's really owed each quarter.Given how low the time value of money is right now though, it might be easier just to do an estimate for the year and make quarterly payments.
To whoever missed the 1Q payment, I would pay it ASAP and make the regular payments on the other quarters. You'll pay less interest that way. If you do it in thirds the rest of the way, you'll still be behind until that final payment so you'll own more in interest as the interest will accrue on the amount you are short.
Using that EFTPS system is very smooth. You can set it up for all year, you can view your payment history and upcoming payments, you can set reminders to tell you that a payment is coming to make sure you have money in your account it's being drawn from, and you can easily change payments if you situation calls for it. No worries of forgetting, check being lost in the mail, payment somehow credited to the wrong account, wondering if they really got it, etc.