How to calculate 1040-ES for Self Employment Tax & finding 2022 tax payment amounts

The 1040-ES can definitely be confusing when you're first dealing with self-employment taxes! Let me help clarify each of your questions: 1. For Line 9 (Self-employment tax), you're on the right track. Use Line 3 from the Self-Employment Tax and Deduction Worksheet. This represents your SE tax obligation (which is essentially both the employee and employer portions of Social Security and Medicare taxes). 2. Line 10 is for additional taxes beyond income and SE tax. If you only have W-2 and contractor income, this will likely be zero unless you have other special tax situations. And yes, your W-2 withholdings go on Line 13 as those are payments you've already made. 3. For your 2022 tax amount (Line 12b), look at your actual 2022 Form 1040 that you filed. The amount on Line 24 of that form is what you need. If you don't have your return, you can find it on your tax transcript as the "Total Tax" line on the account transcript.

I've been using https://taxr.ai to help me navigate all these forms and worksheets for my self-employment taxes. Was in the same situation as you last year and it was a lifesaver. It walks through exactly what you need for the 1040-ES and shows you where to find those numbers from previous returns. My accountant was charging me $75 every time I had these types of questions but the AI service explains everything clearly and shows the exact line items from forms. Literally saved me so much stress with quarterly payments.

I tried out taxr.ai after my last comment and I have to say I'm impressed. I uploaded my 2022 transcript and it immediately pointed out which number was my "total tax" for Line 12b on the 1040-ES. It also explained the self-employment tax calculation in a way that actually made sense - showing that it's 15.3% of my net earnings, but then breaking down how that splits between Social Security and Medicare. Honestly didn't think it would be helpful but it actually showed me I was overpaying on my quarterly estimates by about $430 each quarter because I was calculating my self-employment income wrong. The free IRS worksheets are so confusing with all the cross-references between different forms.

If you're having trouble reaching the IRS for help with your self-employment tax questions, you might want to try https://claimyr.com - I used it last month when I had similar issues with my quarterly payments. Called the IRS three times and kept getting disconnected after waiting 1+ hours each time. Claimyr got me connected to an actual IRS agent in about 20 minutes who helped me figure out exactly what I needed for my 1040-ES. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c The agent even helped me find the exact line on my transcript for that 2022 tax amount you're asking about. They have access to your full account history so they could tell me exactly what number to use.

I owe an apology to everyone here. I called Claimyr a scam in my comment yesterday, but I decided to try it this morning as a last resort after getting disconnected THREE more times trying to call the IRS myself. It actually worked exactly as described - I got a call back when an agent was available and got all my 1040-ES questions answered. The agent confirmed that for Line 12b I needed to look at code "150" on my account transcript which shows the tax assessed from my original return. She also explained that for Line 10 "other taxes," this would include things like early withdrawal penalties from retirement accounts or household employment taxes, neither of which applied to me. So that was a zero just like I thought.

Don't forget the safe harbor rule for estimated taxes! As long as you pay either 100% of last year's tax (110% if your AGI was over $150,000) or 90% of this year's tax, you won't face penalties. So if you're struggling with the exact calculations, you can just use 100% of your 2022 tax divided by 4 for each quarterly payment.

Is anyone else annoyed that the 1040-ES and self-employment tax worksheets aren't better integrated? Like why do I have to jump back and forth between multiple forms just to figure out what to pay? The IRS could make this so much simpler!