What’s the simplest way to avoid a surprise tax bill? In this episode of Elevate Wealth, Deanne Rosso and Ben Hall explain the difference between paycheck withholding and estimated tax payments—and when each applies.You’ll learn how W-4 withholding works for W-2 employees, when estimated payments are needed for income without withholding, and why a quick mid-year checkup can make a big difference.If you want help reviewing your withholding or estimated payments and making a small adjustment now, reach out anytime. Visit elevate-wealth.com and click Let’s Talk.#ElevateWealth #TaxWithholding #EstimatedTaxes #TaxTips #PersonalFinance #FinancialPlanning #TaxTime

What's the simplest way to avoid owing a lot at tax time? Find out today on Elevate Wealth. Hey there, I'm Deanne Rosso with Elevate Wealth. I'm your host today and I'm joined by our director of tax services, Ben Hall. Ben, thank you again for joining me today. Thank you. So, Ben, help us connect the dots. When is paycheck withholding enough, and when do estimated tax payments come into play? Sure. So, yeah, good question. And the idea is to make sure you're paying enough tax throughout the year, right? There's a couple different ways to do that. The main one is through your paycheck withholdings. If you're a W2 employee, you want to make sure you fill out your form W4. And so that's the form that you give to your employer and it tells them how much to withhold from your paycheck each month. So you make sure you know throughout the year that you're withholding a little bit every month. So you get to the end of the year and you don't have a huge tax bill. So that's kind of the primary way. But some people have income that's not on a W2. For example, if you have like a side gig, if you manage a side business or something like that, or if you have a rental property where you're generating rental income, or you may have some other types of investments that generate income. Well, these are scenarios where you're not getting a W2. You're not having anything withheld. So, you might have to make estimated tax payments throughout the year. In that case, it's fairly easy to do. You just estimate what your income's going to be and what you think your tax might be on that income. Then you make estimated payments directly to the IRS throughout the year. So the same principle, you would just want to make sure you get to the end of the year and you've paid in enough taxes to where you don't have a huge tax bill at the end of the year. A quick, you know, checkup during the year is probably a good idea. Maybe maybe multiple checkups during the year because you can tweak these things throughout the year. So if your situation changes, your income is going to be higher or lower than you thought it would be, you can make adjustments throughout the year so you end up pretty close to what you thought you were going to be when it comes time to file your taxes. Yeah. What I hear from a lot of my clients is we don't want surprises at tax time. And so to your point, the easiest way to do that is to have that check-in throughout the year. Add up everything you've gotten in income. Do a little check-in on how much tax do I anticipate owing this year. Right. So, great tips, Ben. And if you need help figuring out, you know, how much income do I have? What's my tax bracket? What's my anticipated tax liability next year? And am I withholding enough? We can help you with answers to those questions and more. You can visit us at elevate-wealth.com and click let's talk. Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you again next time.