Comment by localhost3000

You don’t _have_ to pay estimated taxes. If you choose not to you just pay a penalty at tax time (essentially interest on what you didn’t pay throughout the year). It’s up to you to decide if it’s worth it. I freelanced for a few years and just paid the penalty because I didn’t want to spend time thinking about taxes more than once a year. For how much I was making at the time I was fine with this trade off.