For new small business owners, meeting your tax obligations is a big adjustment ? particularly when you?ve been used to having an employer take out income tax withholdings with each paycheck. When you have your own business though, tax time isn?t just once a year; rather you have to make estimated tax payments throughout the year.

If you?re not sure if you need to pay estimated taxes for your business, read on to learn more about small business estimated tax payments:

What are estimated tax payments??

Individuals and businesses are required to pay taxes over the course of the year, and not just at ?tax time.? If you?re working for an employer, your employer most likely withholds these taxes for you throughout the year. When you?re self-employed or own a business, you?ll be expected to make these tax payments to the IRS and state on your own.

Who has to pay estimated tax payments??

The rules for estimated tax payments vary based on business type:

• For sole proprietors, partnerships, S Corporation shareholders, single member LLCs who elect to be taxed as a sole prop or an S corporation, or multi-member LLCs who elect to be taxed as a partnership or an S corporation: If you expect to owe $1,000 or more in taxes when you file your income tax return, you most likely will need to make estimated tax payments to the federal government (and potentially your state government too). There?s one exception: if your witholdings and tax credits add up to as least as much as your prior year?s tax, you do not need to made a federal estimated tax payment.
• For C Corporations and multi-member LLCs who elect to be taxed as a C Corporation: If you own a Corporation, you will need to make estimated tax payments if you expect to owe $500 or more with your tax filing.

When are payments due??

Estimated tax payments are divided into four payment periods throughout the year:

• April 15th
• June 15th
• September 15th
• January 15th

If your business is a Corporation, your estimated taxes are due on the fifteenth day of the 4^th, 6^th, 9^th, and 12^th month after the end of your company?s fiscal year.

Once you?re in the system, the IRS will send you estimated payment vouchers at the end of each tax year. However, whether you receive these payment vouchers or not, it is your responsibility to make payments for both the Federal and State taxes.

How to Pay

If you?re filing as a self-employed individual or disregarded entity (i.e. single-member LLC, partnership, or S Corp shareholder), you should complete Form 1040-ES. This form contains blank vouchers for mailing your estimated tax payments. You can also make your payments using the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS). For your state payment, you have to search online for the appropriate form, complete it and send it in with your payment.

Corporations must submit their payments using EFTPS, or can arrange for a tax professional, financial institution, payroll service, or other trusted third party to make deposits on their behalf.

How much should you pay??

• For self-employed individuals and disregarded entities (i.e. single-member LLCs, partnerships, and S Corp shareholders), the IRS recommends using Form 1040-ES to calculate your individual estimated tax payments.
• Corporations should use the Worksheet on Form 1120-W to calculate estimated tax payments.

Alternatively, if you expect the current year?s earnings to be relatively similar to last year, you can use last year?s tax return to calculate your estimated payments. Or if you experience fluctuating income, you can choose to calculate your estimated taxes based on the actual amount you made that quarter.

You don?t need to show the IRS how you arrived at your estimated sum. However, it?s in your best interest to reach as accurate a figure as possible. Paying too little can result in an unfortunate surprise when it?s time to file your annual taxes, in addition to potential penalties for underpayment. Conversely, by paying too much, you?ve essentially taken money out of your business and you could have invested that money for a higher return.

If you?re unsure about your estimated tax obligations, it?s wise to consult a tax specialist who can advise you on the best calculation method for your business and how to properly track and record your earnings and deductions. Just remember the more time you invest in your estimated tax payments, the easier your life will be come tax time.

Piggy Bank Photo via Shutterstock

About the Author

Nellie Akalp is CEO of CorpNet, her second incorporation filing service based on her strong passion to assist small business owners and entrepreneurs in starting their business. Free guides, advice and videos on small business legal topics are available at her Small Biz Corner.

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Jim Dyson / Getty Images

By Courtney Garcia, msnbc.com contributor

Rocker Jack White believes he holds the world record for the shortest concert of all time, but Guinness World Records is refusing to recognize his accomplishment.

The musician told Interview magazine that back in 2007 he played a one-note show in Newfoundland, Canada. Video of the event shows that fans, who were in on the joke, were excited by the concept concert.

?We?d done this whole tour of Canada where we played in every province, and almost every day we would do a free show. I would decide each morning what kind of show we would do,? White told Interview. ?So when we were in Newfoundland, the idea that I came up with at breakfast was, ?Let?s play one note today??I told [bandmate] Meg [White] as we were getting out of the car. I said, ?Make sure you grab your cymbal ? when you hit the cymbal, grab it so that the note only lasts a millisecond.? I was thinking that afterwards we could contact the Guinness World Records people and see if we could get the record for shortest concert of all time. So we did it, but ultimately they turned us down.?

White, whose first solo project, ?Blunderbuss,? debuted at No.1 on the U.K. Billboard charts in April, deemed the organization?s response to be ?elitist,? and further remarked there was ?nothing scientific? about the process.

He added, ?They just have an office full of people who decide what is a record and what isn’t?Most of the records in there ? who has the biggest collection of salt-and-pepper shakers or whatever ? are just whatever they want them to be. So with something like the shortest concert of all time, they didn’t think whatever we did was interesting enough to make it a record.?

Navesh Chitrakar / Reuters

Guinness representatives gave their side of things to British music magazine NME on Wednesday, saying that White?s band did make the cut in their 2009 edition, but was later removed when the task of measuring such qualifications became cumbersome.

?Subsequent to this appearance, we received a large volume of applications from bands and performers seeking to beat this record. The ultimate results of this was individuals claiming that simply appearing on stage was enough to qualify them for this record,? representatives for Guinness World Records clarified. ?The results were difficult to objectively measure (for example, how many members of the crowd need to be able to see the performer before they disappear off stage?), and as such, it’s difficult to justify an appearance as a concert by any reasonable definition of the word.?

?The records organization said they?also felt competing to be shortest ?trivialized? the nature of the activity.

Watch the video of the one-note concert. Do you think it should be in the record books? Tell us on Facebook.

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More from music:

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Paul Marks, senior technology correspondent

Businesses across Europe expect their use of social network technology to boost their ability to collaborate, innovate and hire the smartest people, according to a Google survey.?But the flagging economic performance of the most enthusiastic social-network-using nations suggests these expectations may go unmet.

Funded by Google UK, market researcher Millward Brown of London asked 2700 people in seven European countries a raft of questions about how they think always-on connectivity with their customers (and their rivals, from whom they can poach staff) will impact their businesses. Some 63 per cent of respondents say using LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter has the potential to change the way they work, with 70 per cent saying they have already changed some strategies because of it. Nearly 20 per cent say productivity will be boosted by their ability to better understand what customers and retailers want.

Just over half say companies who do not embrace social networks will go under. And email, that old business staple, looks set to take a hiding, with some 31 per cent saying emerging social tools have already slashed the volume and length of their internal and customer emails.

“We now have data validation on why people are using these social networking tools,” says Thomas Davies, of Google UK. “Whether its for Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, shared Google docs or other networks, what we are interested in is quantifying how companies expect to add value using social networks. We’ve found a tight coupling between a company’s ability to collaborate and its ability to innovate.”

But the research also revealed that the nations whose businesses are currently the most enthusiastic users of social networks are Spain and Italy – whose economies are flagging the most?(measured by GDP per capita in 2011)?out of the seven countries surveyed (see graphic). While this is only correlation and not causation, it at least raises a question over the ability of social tools to boost business.

“This is just a first dip into this subject,” explains Allan Hyde, account director at Millward Brown. He says what’s really needed to test the business efficacy of social networks are control groups of high-growth businesses who do, and who do not, use social networks. Only this way can their performances be properly compared.

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