I just know that paypal only declare how much money you did if it's more than a few thousands...beside that, just add that to the yearly income i guess. The company status you're mentionning is optional, for those that try to avoid paying more taxes, on that point i can't help

I don't really do commissions, but I work in a different state than I live in, so I have to do that quarterly payments thing as well since my employer doesn't deduct my home state's income taxes for me.

Honestly? I take the lazy way out and skip the quarterly payments, and then have the lump sum taken out of my tax return at the end of the year when I report how much I made in total. They don't seem to penalize for that. Though of course if the income taxes end up being bigger than the tax return, you end up with a nice April bill to pay instead.

I have an accountant that does it all for me because I'm a moron and don't understand any of it :D Honestly its best to seek a professional to just get a general idea of what you are looking at first, they will be able to help you work out numbers and so on. If you'd rather do it yourself they'll give you advice or point you in the direction of an accountant :]

You don't -have- to pay quarterly, most people just prefer it than paying one large sum every year. Makes it a little easier to digest.

Unless you have the spare money for it comfortably, I don't personally recommend places like H&R Block. The first year I was on contract and needed to do taxes, I consulted them and was informed they'd charge me at least 300 just to process my MISC-1099. That's not even covering anything else I would have needed done. That was just too much, so I tried Turbotax instead and that's what I've been using every year.

At the time, they had a Basic option that was really cheap and worked fine. Unfortunately they've since removed that option and you need the Deluxe package to file a 1099. It's still better than the alternative, and probably runs me around 100 every time to do everything I need to do (maybe more around 80?). This includes state taxes. They also save your info and make it easy for you to file by guiding you through the process and pre-filling out stuff the next year.

You could of course also look around for personal tax preparers, which is what my friend does. I believe she pays around 200-250? It'll always be cheaper to do it yourself so it just comes down to how much you're willing to pay for the convenience of having someone else do it for you.

I've been filing these since 2013 so if you have more questions I may be able to answer them, just keep in mind I'm not a professional! I might also direct my friend here since she does these too and might have more advice.

thanks for your advice. Don't you usually get charged interest fees if you don't pay quarterly? Or is that above a certain amount?

Me personally? No, I've never been charged any fees or penalties. I was making about 400-600 a month and never had a problem paying yearly instead of quarterly.

If you aren't making a large amount I assume it's fine, but I suppose contacting a professional would be your best route.

You don't have to pay quarterly, but you might have a penalty charge if your amount owing at the end of the year is higher than a certain amount. The estimate is just an estimate, and you'll correct the final amount at the end of the year when you file your actual tax return. Note that if you earn less than about $10k (from all sources) you'll likely not owe anything to the government. Keep receipts for all your expenses and document stuff you can claim as deductions (like business travel).

You don't strictly need an accountant but it can really help even if you just get them to help you for one year and then use that experience to do it yourself after that.

As a fellow self-employed person, everything I've read and heard told me yes, you do have to pay quarterly. The internet is NOT clear on this as you've seen! You have to go straight to the horse's mouth: the IRS's website. There it is very clear you must pay quarterly. If you don't, then they charge you interest for the quarters you didn't pay. This applies to both state and federal taxes. I did not pay quarterly last year because I was only self-employed the last six months... then I got hit with added interest on top of the taxes I owed.

This is my first year fully self-employed, so I'm kinda in the same boat you are having to figure this out. To condense what I did into some steps:
* download the quarterly payment vouchers from the IRS and your state if the state does income tax. They are easy to find.
* bookmark the website for both feds and your state where you can make these payments.
* go through some of the IRS work sheets for self-employed people to calculate your withholding percentage. Keep in mind the IRS is only the federal side, and if you owe income tax in your state, you'll need to calculate that too. For me, it comes out to about 30%. Estimate higher rather than lower.
* The worksheets will also help you figure out exactly how much each quarterly payment should be, based on your estimated yearly income. TurboTax made these vouchers for me automatically :)
* I made a separate bank account where I just dropped 30% of every payment I got over the year into it.
* then by the due dates for each installment (also findable online), I pay from that account.
* Then come tax time, you shouldn't owe anything :3 yay!

I hope that helps :)

https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7433150/ This may help you out a little with possible deductions.

But my CPA cost me $150 and saved me $1500 in taxes by filling out a ridiculous 39 forms and got me set up on a payment plan for the remaining $2000. Money well spent, in my opinion.

americans and their terrible tax system smh

Tell me about it. For the longest time, the state of Massachusetts allowed you to file your taxes on their own web site for free. It was incredibly easy and painless. Last year they decided to privatize everything to "improve choice", so now you have to go to a 3rd party to file electronically. Every tax preparer I went to charges money to file state taxes despite [both the state and corporations] advertising everything as completely free. They also refuse to file your state taxes unless you file federal taxes through their service at the same time. There's plenty more problems thanks to the change, too.

I mean, seriously... health care isn't enough, so they've privatized taxes? WTF?

It's such a mess, I just gave up and filed my state taxes by mail, something I haven't done in more than a decade. Let's see how much money the state burns processing all those forms by hand.

yep you can thank those tax websites lobbying the govt for that