This year I owed a fair amount in federal taxes ($7,763) and Maryland taxes ($4,312) , which is reflected in the PDF of my return. After submitting my return I downloaded my PDF and noticed four payment vouchers at the top of both returns. I'm confused on a number of fronts:I asked for my return to be paid today (4/12) in one lump amount. Do these vouchers at the top of each suggest that 4 different payments are going to be made over the next year rather than one lump amount? The federal one has due dates while the state one does not.The four amounts for the federal ($1,923) are $71 short of what what I owe. That's the "penalty" I was supposed to pay for not fully pre-paying my taxes on top of what I already owed. Am I wrong in thinking this means this penalty isn't getting paid based on what's in here? In the section that asks about penalties I selected that I wanted this paid as part of my overall taxes.The four amounts for Maryland ($1,229) are ~$600 more than what's listed on the final "amount due" line. I believe I owed a penalty to Maryland that was ~$20 dollars and am not sure if that's factored in here at any point.I'm extremely concerned that some kind of error was made during this process. If there is some kind of error, I'd love to get some help correcting these mistakes so I'm paying these amounts in full.

Question

My Federal/State "Payment Vouchers" Don't Add Up?

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
April 12, 2021
1 reply
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This year I owed a fair amount in federal taxes ($7,763) and Maryland taxes ($4,312) , which is reflected in the PDF of my return. After submitting my return I downloaded my PDF and noticed four payment vouchers at the top of both returns.

I'm confused on a number of fronts:

I asked for my return to be paid today (4/12) in one lump amount. Do these vouchers at the top of each suggest that 4 different payments are going to be made over the next year rather than one lump amount? The federal one has due dates while the state one does not.
The four amounts for the federal ($1,923) are $71 short of what what I owe. That's the "penalty" I was supposed to pay for not fully pre-paying my taxes on top of what I already owed. Am I wrong in thinking this means this penalty isn't getting paid based on what's in here? In the section that asks about penalties I selected that I wanted this paid as part of my overall taxes.
The four amounts for Maryland ($1,229) are ~$600 more than what's listed on the final "amount due" line. I believe I owed a penalty to Maryland that was ~$20 dollars and am not sure if that's factored in here at any point.

I'm extremely concerned that some kind of error was made during this process. If there is some kind of error, I'd love to get some help correcting these mistakes so I'm paying these amounts in full.

M

Mike9241

those 4 vouchers are likely your estimated tax payments for 2021. they have nothing to do with paying what you owe for 2020. you should see wording on the vouchers "2021 estimated tax". the tax laws don't require you to pay them but then you are subject to penalties for underpaying your taxes for 2021 if your withholding and estimated tax payments aren't 100% of 2020 tax (110% if your adjusted gross income over $150,000) or 90% of 2021 tax, the $7763 may include penalties (for underpaying your 2020 taxes) which are not included in the 2021 estimate tax payments.

2020 estimated tax penalty is on line 38 of the 1040

E

evanmedinaAuthor

I see - its an estimate on future taxes and not what's being paid. That's really helpful to know.

On the federal side: provided Line 37 of the 1040 has the appropriate amount of taxes due and Line 38 shows appropriate penalty - I should expect to see that amount withdrawn from my account? If so, that's exactly what I was trying to do.

I did not see a similar "penalty" line for Maryland. Again, the amount was only ~$20, but do you know how I might confirm that penalty is included somewhere? I recall explicitly requesting to be included in my total amount owed.