Hot take: I thought quarterly taxes were just a way for the government to get money faster.

For my first year freelancing, I just paid one big lump sum at the end and the penalty was rough. Last quarter, I finally set aside 30% of each payment into a separate account. When I made my estimated payment last week, it was just a transfer, not a panic. It felt like paying a regular bill instead of a crisis. Has anyone else found a simple system that makes this less of a headache?

4 comments

4 Comments

the_alice1mo ago

My friend just pays a flat 25% each quarter and never had a penalty. Maybe the 30% is overkill.

kevin_williams1mo ago

Sounds like you learned the hard way, just like the rest of us.

jenny_white211mo ago

Hard way? More like the only way for some stuff. You can read all the manuals, but you don't really get it until you've messed it up yourself. Like trying to build that IKEA shelf without the picture steps first, just to prove you could. Spoiler: you can't. That's the real lesson.

ivan46214d ago

That 30% rule is smart though. My buddy does 25% like alice said but he got hit with a small underpayment penalty one time and it threw off his whole tax projection for the year. Actually this reminds me of my uncle who used to keep all his receipts in a shoebox until April 14th. One year he found a check from three years ago he forgot to cash. He just stared at it for like five minutes trying to figure out if that made him a genius or an idiot.