Can a regular salaried (w2) employee opt to pay quarterly taxes?
As a consultant, I got used to paying quarterly taxes. Now that I'm a regular w2 salaried employee, I'm subject to normal withholding on each pay statement. I would like to keep making exact quarterly payments instead of having a (generally incorrect) amount held back each paycheck.
I haven't been able to find any information on the 1040-es that would make me think I'm ineligible to do so, but I suspect that it may be the case. I'd have to stop paycheck withholdings by updating my w4 to either have a high number of exemptions or mark myself as exempt from taxes, which I assume is where the rub lies.
So, as a regular salaryman, is it possible for me to pay taxes exclusively through quarterly payments in lieu of traditional withholdings?
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You can't do that.
You can't directly control the amount that is withheld from your paycheck. You can only indirectly change it, by using form W-4. When filling out form W-4, you aren't supposed to write an excessive number of allowances. The allowances have to be justified by your tax situation.
Specifically, IRS pub 505 states "You can claim only the number of allowances to which you are entitled." and "You may have to pay a penalty of 0 if [...] You have no reasonable basis for those statements or allowances at the time you prepare your Form W-4."
Employers are required to withhold income tax as well as Social Security and Medicare taxes from wages paid to their employees and send this money (together with the employer's share of Social Security and Medicare taxes on salaries paid to their employees) in timely fashion to the government. Here, timely rarely means by the end if the quarter; for large employers, it can semi-weekly, while for smaller employers it might be the end of the month, or 30 days etc. Self-employed persons with no employees (other than immediate family) can send their estimated tax payments on a quarterly basis, but not most anybody else.
So, can you arrange to have no withholding of taxes from your paychecks, and make payments quarterly as you used to? The answer is No, because even if you claim a gazillion allowances on Form W-4 to drive the income tax withholding to zero, you cannot get rid of the Social Security and Medicare tax component. Also, employers are required to report large claims of allowances on W-4 forms to the IRS, and not accept such claims at face value. So you are SOL on this matter.
While stannius' answer definitely alarms me, on the top of the same document (pub 505) the IRS seems much more relaxed.
The federal income tax is a pay-as-you-go tax. You must pay the tax as you earn or receive income during the year. There are two ways to pay as you go.
Withholding. If you are an employee, your employer probably withholds income tax from your pay. In addition, tax may be withheld from certain other income, such as pensions, bonuses, commissions, and gambling winnings. The amount withheld is paid to the IRS in your name.
Estimated tax. If you don’t pay your tax through withholding, or don’t pay enough tax that way, you might have to pay estimated tax. People who are in business for themselves generally will have to pay their tax this way. You may have to pay estimated tax if you receive income such as dividends, interest, capital gains, rents, and royalties. Estimated tax is used to pay not only income tax, but other taxes such as self-employment tax and alternative minimum tax.
So it seems not very cut and dry. FWIW I've done this method (claiming approx. income/4150 allowances on my W4, intelligently investing the float, then paying estimated payments ideally with a new credit card) for my state (Oregon) and Federal for the last two quarters and will definitely report back if I'm audited!
EDIT:
I have had a phone conversation with an Oregon tax auditor already, but this conversation reminds me that I didn't have a statement from a Federal auditor yet. Will work on that.
EDIT2:
The IRS was recently required to not give public "tax law" support anymore and instead defer it to private individuals/companies. So, hopefully I'll get some leniency from the IRS if they call. After talking with two accountants that deal with worse things (non-payment, etc), they both thought that I wouldn't have any problems with this. We shall see!
On your W-4 form, you don't pick an amount to withhold; you pick a number of allowances. You arrive at the number of allowances by filling out worksheets associated with the W-4.
You must do this based on life facts you believe to be true at the time you fill it out.
If your situation changes, you can/should/must change the number of allowances.
Further, if you have an unforeseen turn of fortune that puts you behind in your withholding, then you must make additional payments via some method. 1040-ES is perfectly acceptable.
There is a way to specify flat dollars per check to withhold, but that is intended for when 0 allowances is not enough withholding; say you had a 401k loan go bust and must pay income tax on all that. I suppose you could specify 99 allowances and a fixed dollar amount to withhold, but that could blow up on you if the IRS catches you.
Honestly, I do not see the IRS caring as long as your withholding is reasonably close to your final tax bill. and you paid it evenly through the year, or at least, in proportion to when the income did occur. So if you get a windfall in December, just pre-pay the expected tax ASAP.
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