Check Your Safe Harbor Payments

Posted November 2018

Often, individual taxpayers calculate their 2018 Federal quarterly estimated tax payments based on 100% or 110% of 2017 tax liability to provide a “safe harbor” from penalty and interest when filing their 2018 tax returns. If you generally pay your tax liability with both withholdings and estimated tax payments, your 2018 withholdings may have been estimated to be the same as 2017. However, your 2018 actual withholdings may be lower than 2017 withholdings due to a decrease in gross income, a change to your W-4, or the adjusted 2018 withholding tables. Therefore, you should verify your total 2018 withholding before year-end to determine if the safe harbor will be met. Please call us with your latest paystub and we can assist in verifying your 2018 payments. We are also available to assist with completing your 2019 Form W-4 and Oklahoma withholding form.