I had a similar year (actually a bit more).
I put 30% of every check aside for taxes. It ended up being less than that so I got to pocket the difference.
Why didn’t you save up? You knew the bite was coming.
I think his worry is if it will affect his estimated taxes for next -not what he pays this year. I don’t think he is concern about the tax hit this year.
Also I would describe your situation as “I get back what was rightfully mine all along” rather than “i get to pocket the difference”. The latter makes it sound like it is something good.
i should have paid as it was happening but busy. i was consulting, not an accountant, and i actually did not know what would happen from week to week. as it turned out, the spigot shut off in july. i panicked in december and mad YUGE payments to fed and state but by then too late to affect this year’s 1040ES as turbotax calculates (which i imagine is correct). this year is only the second year i was consulting and it was only about 9 months total, spanning a winter. The large checks kept rolling in and fortunately i did not spend it. it could have been worse had i regarded that money as “mine” for some odd reason lol. I think i could do better in the future, but i doubt that i will ever be in a similar situation again, so in all likelihood it is a one-off or two-off situation. The original plan was to go to an accountant at the beginning of last year. I ended up going to one a week ago and offering to cast my lot with him, but he wanted all original documents such as mortgage which would require even more plowing through more rooms stacked high with layers of papers, ugh. He briefly answered the one open question i had off the cuff and that brief answer was (to my pleasant surprise) enough to get me through turbotax a week before the deadline. To gather all the old paperwork might have taken several more days (I know, procrastination, guilty as charged lol). Turbotax makes it relatively easy to coast through year by year if one started using it way in the past. I also always doublecheck to make sure i am well inside the green band for audit danger and i try to keep any ambiguity errors in favor of the government in case of any later audits. For better or otherwise, I don’t think I have ever had to pay a penalty using my methodology.