Talked to my accountant about quarterly taxes and it hit different

Had a coffee with my accountant last week and she straight up told me I'm probably overpaying by like $400 a month on estimated taxes. She said most freelancers just guess and end up giving the IRS a free loan. Made me realize I've been doing it wrong for 2 years now. Anyone else ever run the numbers and find out they were way off?

3 comments

3 Comments

alex8208d ago

The thing nobody talks about is how the safe harbor rules actually work in practice. If you made less last year, you can pay based on that smaller amount and avoid penalties even if you earn way more this year. Most people miss that part and just panic pay whatever their software tells them. Your accountant might have been nudging you toward that loophole. It's wild how many tax pros don't explain it either. They just let people overpay out of fear.

milesbarnes8d ago

Wait wait wait, hold on. So you're telling me the safe harbor thing is based on LAST year's income, not this year's? That's honestly blowing my mind right now. I've been overpaying for like three years (rookie mistake, I know) because my accountant just said "pay this much" and I never questioned it. The fact that tax pros actively choose not to explain this (like, they just let you panic-pay extra for no reason) is kind of infuriating actually. It almost feels like they want you to be confused so you keep paying them every quarter to figure it out.

morganl717d ago

Right? That's the thing that gets me too. It's like they're happy to just take your money and not explain a single thing, because then you think you can't do it yourself. I had a accountant once who literally just said "put 30% aside" without ever telling me it was a suggestion not a hard rule. And now I'm sitting here realizing I could've been putting that extra cash into a savings account for three years and earned some interest on it instead of giving Uncle Sam a interest-free loan. The safe harbor thing is literally the one trick that saves people money and they act like it's a secret passcode or something.