Today, right after I have my girlfriend kick me very hard in the groin area, I'm going to pay my estimated taxes for all of 2010. This is the first time I will have done this in my life or in Quickbooks. What I'm not sure of is which account to draw the money out of, not which bank account, but which Quickbooks account (expenses and so on.) There is no account or item called "Income Tax" in the drop down or in my chart of accounts.

are you a sole prop/partnership/s corp?

we are an s corp, so we get distributions, then have to pay income taxes personally.

it would be the same for sole proprietor and a partnership. Quickbooks keeps track of the company, not your personal liabilities. They are 2 separate entities

thats what an accountant is for!!! i dont even try and keep up with that crap!

Must be nice. Every accountant I try to hire tells me its easy and just do it myself...as far as making estimated payments anyway. I'm sure i'll need help filing the return though. I'm the sole owner/ operator and it is my only income, anyway so I believe what OEX is saying is that I just file a 1040, pretty simple really. So in that case I could transfer funds, write a personal check and be done with it. Please advise if this is way out of line.

dont even try this!!!! you can find an accountant to handle you stuff for about 100 a month and then 3-500 for your year end and tax returns....

your gonna get screwed....

Seriously? I shouldn't even be trying to keep books and make quarterly estimated payments on my own, stuff like that? Basically, I have an accountant keeping a close eye on me as far as doing my own QB during the year but i'm sure he will provide his services as far as filing the return....to get all the deductions possible and make sure i don't screw myself.

Here is how you do it. Take your Quickbook's file, called an accountants copy, to your accountant. Have them prepare your return. When completed, they will have your P&L for the company done, added your personal stuff to your personal return, then they'll hand you your stuff to sign and vouchers for all estimates for 2011 along with a bill for the amount due for 2010.

If you haven't made any estimated payments for 2010 by now, youre already screwed for improper payment and will be penailized accordingly.

HIRE A PRO. My account does all my W2s, corp returns and personal returns. It isnt much in the grand scheme of things.

Come on don't be stupid! You gotta keep books but you give it to an accountant every month for them to keep track and verify so they can do your end if year! And quarterlies!!!!

i do all our payroll, payroll deposits, etc. I do not take my stuff monthly to the accountant. My accountant gets the info at year end and they prepare everything that needs preparing. I then get vouchers to make my quarterly payments for the upcoming year and an amount that I still owe or overpaid. An overpaid amount goes towards the future payments. Any shortfall gets paid by me, not the company. Its my liability not the companys. Those payment amounts need to be based on the prior years earnings or based on 110% of the current year. The problem with basing it on the current year is who knows what will happen?

Like I said, I tried to hire a guy, then another guy, and both of them laughed at me and told me to do it myself. I even tried to pay them up front, however much they wanted but I couldn't even get them to give me a price. I even told them that the price doesn't matter but all they would do is give me free lessons so this is all I know to do.

Will I be really be penalized for not making deposits already? I have only officially been in business since April so I'm not sure how I am supposed to make quarterly payments based on the previous year's profits?

I hate to sound like a smart ass but who inthe did you ask? The supermarket clerk and the girl cutting your hair?

Accounting is no different than AV. Who would tell a prospective client to do it themselves? Just go buy that AVR & C4 stuff on Ebay and do it yourself.

You now own the company. I'll flat out call you a flippin fool for doing it yourself and would hope you realize you must have talked to the two trunk slammenest accountants in your area.

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I'm curious, what kind of penalties would he face if he hasn't filed or paid anything less. Hundreds? Thousands? What is it based on, a flat penalty amount or a percentage? Just curious.

I'm no accountant and don't pretend to be one. When I did ask my accountant about it, he stated that if the amount owed was over certain amount (somewhere around $6800 if I remember correctly) than there would be penalties.
Government basically sees you owing money as you denying them the opportunity to properly invest that money over the course of a year.
The quarterly payments may not be required if you don't make any or enough money. On the other hand, if you business is booming, you may need to pay more frequently.
As example, in New Mexico, for sales taxes I have an option to pay monthly, quarterly or every 6 months. The way it's calculated, is if I owe more than $200 two pay periods in a row, they'll drop me to the more frequent payment option.
I was told by state's IRS office that WalMart for example pays their sales taxes daily.

No no no I don't want to do anything myself, hell I'd rather be cleaning out my truck than even thinking about that crap, but some of these guys don't want to deal w/ anybody without X number of employees and the like. Flame as you will but this whole process has been extremely frustrating.

So no, I did not ask my trash man or even the guy who says hello when you go into WalMart. I think it was more they turned out to be overqualified. Audio Video stores/ installation firms can be the same way, right? The opposite of a trunk slammer: simply not enough time for hang and bangs, service calls for helping an old lady set the timer on her VCR, and so on.

I have been under close supervision by one of these guys this year. I was basically instructed to get a feel for how much I will be making. He has looked over my QB and said I was doing a good job. He'll be filing my returns and hopefully continue working with me, checking my file, and spoon feeding... and no worries, I haven't become rich or anything.

A few things you need to know first. Just like members here always want to know what specific equipment is involved in a problem, before you cut a check you need to know what entity is paying taxes. A C-corporation pays income taxes. S-corporations, partnerships, sole proprietors, LLPs, and LLCs don't pay income tax, but their owners do. So before you start looking for which account to book the tax expense to, you need to know whether it is a personal expense or an expense of your company. For most small businesses, income tax expense is a personal expense of the owner.

Writing the check is a simple thing - just like paying any other vendor. Knowing how much you should pay is something that your tax preparer, most likely an account, should tell you.

It is likely that you are not finding an income tax account in Quickbooks because you told Quickbooks in your setup what type of legal entity your business is and QB is smart enough to know that the entity doesn't pay the tax, you do personally.

When in doubt, hire a pro.