No one is excited about paying taxes, but for the most part, they're unavoidable for the working woman. Yet, not everyone has to pay quarterly taxes. You may have to get acquainted with quarterly taxes depending on how you earn money and who signs your paychecks. Not only is it essential to know if you should pay quarterly tax payments, but you need to know what your tax liability is and the deadline to submit your taxes — unless you want the IRS visiting.
Who Needs To Pay Quarterly Taxes?
GiphyPlan on paying taxes if you're a small business owner, you haven't had enough of your income withheld, or you're a self-employed individual. Unsure if you're self-employed?
You're self-employed or a small business owner if you're:
- An independent contractor
- A full-time/part-time freelancer
- An individual with a side gig
- A sole proprietor
- A business partnership member - LLC, LLP, LP, GP
You haven't had enough income withheld if:
- You owe a minimum of $1000 in federal income taxes currently after accounting for your refundable and withholding credits.
- Your withheld and refundable credits don't cover more than 90% of your tax liability for the current year or 100% of your liability for the previous year; whichever is lesser of the two. (The threshold is 110% as long as your adjusted gross income in the prior year was larger than $150,000 for jointly filed married partners and $75,000 for singles).
Who Doesn’t Have To Pay Quarterly Taxes?
You don't have to pay to make quarterly tax payments if you're a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident who had no tax liability from the previous year. Also, individuals who don't have untaxed income.
How To Estimate Quarterly Taxes
GiphyTo calculate your estimated tax, you should know your expected adjusted gross income, taxes, deductions, taxable income, and credits for the current year. Then, you can calculate your estimated quarterly taxes using a calculator or manually:
1. Determine Taxable Income. Start by estimating the total amount of income you're expecting to earn during the year. Then subtract deductions that are considered above the line (expenses the IRS allows you to deduct from your gross income) to get an adjusted gross income.
2. Calculate Income Tax and Self-Employment Tax. Once you know your adjusted gross income, it's time to calculate your taxes. First, you need to figure out your tax bracket to determine the rate that you are taxes based on your income. Then, take your income tax rate and multiply it by your adjusted gross income.
If you're self-employed, you calculate your taxes a bit differently. There isn't any need to pay taxes on self-employed income under $400, but if you make more than $400, then you're responsible for a 15.3% tax that's a combination of social security tax and medicare. But, you're only responsible for paying taxes on 92.35% of your estimated total income.
If you had a $50,000 estimated total income, the calculation would be 50,000 x 15.3*% 92.35%, for a total of $7,076.25 in owed taxes.
3. Total Taxes and Divide By Four. Lastly, add your income tax and self-employment tax for the current year and divide your total by four. So pretty much if you owe $10,000 in income tax and you owed $15,000 in self-employment tax, your total income tax is $25,000.
So next, you'd divide $25,000.00 by four, so your quarterly tax payment would be $6,250.
When Are Quarterly Taxes Due
If you plan on paying quarterly taxes, it's a bright idea to know when they're due:
- If you earned income on September 1–December 31, 2020, your quarterly tax payment is due by January 15, 2021.
- If you earned income on January 1–March 31, 2021, your quarterly tax payment is due by April 15, 2021.
- If you earned income on April 1–May 31, 2021, your quarterly tax payment is due by June 15, 2021.
- If you earned income on June 1–August 31, 2021, your quarterly tax payment is due by September 15, 2021.
- If you earned income on September 1–December 31, 2021, your quarterly tax payment is due by Jan 18, 2022.
How Do I Pay Quarterly Taxes?
There are three ways to pay quarterly taxes; the choice is yours. You can pay your taxes the old school way by mailing your estimated tax payments with IRS Form 1040-ES or paying in cash at an IRS retail partner.
Or, you can keep it modern by paying electronically using the IRS's Direct Pay System or the U.S Treasury's Electronic Federal Tax Payment System. Keep in mind, there is a credit card fee of approximately 2% when paying electronically.
You can mail your estimated tax payments with IRS Form 1040-ES. You can pay electronically and use the IRS's Direct Pay system or the U.S. Treasury's Electronic Federal Tax Payment System, for example. Paying with a credit card carries of fee of around 2%.
Now that you have all of the proper knowledge to make quarterly tax payments, it's time to start actually planning to make your payments. Be sure to estimate your taxes reasonably in advance to avoid lacking enough funds to cover your tax payments. Or, you can simply reach out to an accountant who has the expertise to ensure your taxes are taken care of properly.
Featured image by Getty Images
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak
