Quarterly Taxes Made Simple: What Creators Need to Know

Speaker A00:00:00

Stop scrolling for just one second, because I'm about to say something that's going to mess with you today. If you're a creator, the IRS doesn't care that your income is weird. They don't care that AdSense dipped this month.They don't care that sponsors have ghosted you, and they don't care that January has been slow for you. And here's the scary part. You could be doing well and still get blindsided at tax time. And it's not because you're irresponsible.It's because you're a normal creator. It's because creator money doesn't behave like a normal paycheck. And quarterly taxes, they hit you when you're not ready. So let me ask you something.Have you ever looked at your bank account and thought, I got money here? But you weren't sure how much of it was actually yours, how much you could actually keep?Have you ever had a great month and then still felt anxious because in the back of your mind, you're thinking, okay, but what about taxes? And this is not some quick tip video. This is a comm master class. Today, we're going to sit across the desk from each other.We're not talking about shame, no panic, and no judgment. Just clarity today.Because when you understand quarterly taxes, you stop treating tax season like a surprise attack, and you start treating it like part of the creator ecosystem. And once you have a system, you can breathe again. So today, I'm going to make quarterly taxes simple. Not some IRS manual simple.I'm talking about creator simple. And by the end, you're going to know what they are, who needs them, how to estimate them, and how to stop guessing. Does that sound good? Great.Let's get right into it.

Speaker B00:01:37

I'm a creator on fire Burning up the sky Turning every Knowing the reasons why I got a vision and a voice they can't ignore Every beat I drive just opens the door yeah I'm rising, climbing flipping the scene Break the chain sh the dream I'm a creator. Creator on fire.

Speaker A00:01:55

Hey, I'm Ralph Estep Jr. I'm a licensed accountant with over 30 years of experience. Yeah, it makes me feel old when I say that.But I'm also a business coach, and I'm a working creator, just like you. So I'm not talking about some spreadsheet tower here or some pie in the sky ideas. I live the same chaos you live day in and day out.I've got those uneven months. I've got those random payouts. Hey, the Gear, upgrades. We talk about that on the show a lot, don't we? Those subscriptions are software subscriptions.Editors to pay. And one month, if you're like me, you feel rich. And the next month, you're confused. And the hardest part. Here's the hardest part.You can be talented, you can be consistent, and you can be growing, but still feel financially shaky. And it's not because you're failing. It's because nobody taught you how creator money actually works, especially with taxes.So my job today is to translate this to turn that tax pressure into a calm plan. Because this is a safe space. This isn't about lectures. No, you should have known better.Times just the truth in creator language so you can build something that lasts. And listen, if quarterly taxes already feel heavy, you don't have to do this alone.If you want me to look at your number specifically, I'll look at your payouts. I'll look at your streams of income and help you build a simple plan just for you. Here's what I'm going to tell you right now.Go to Content Creators accountant.com help me. Again, that's Content Creators accountant.com Help me. That's it. No pressure, just clarity.I'll help you build a comm system and less what ifs at night. And if you're questioning this is your off ramp, go again to content creators accountant.com Help me.Well, let's talk about why this is so hard for creators. Listen, Quarterly taxes confuse creators for one big reason. Most advice is built for paycheck people. And guess what?If you haven't told you already, you're not paycheck people. You get paid in bursts. Adsense. As I've said a million times, it hits when it hits the brand deals pay late or earlier.Sometimes they don't pay at all. Affiliate income that comes in in drips and drabs, sometimes daily. And Stripe and PayPal just look different than a paycheck, don't they?Sometimes money shows up without even getting a warning. And when money shows up, your brain does this little trick. Start to think, hey, there's money here. I can spend it.But taxes don't show up as a bill right away. They show up later. So it feels like free money until it doesn't. Have you ever noticed that?Here's what I want you to do as we go through the show tonight. If something strikes your fancy, just mention it right in the chat. If taxes have ever surprised you in the past, put it right in the chat.Let's get back into It. Like I said, you can be responsible and still get caught. Because quarterly taxes are about timing, not morality. And here's the truth.If you ignore quarterly taxes, one of two things is going to happen. Number one thing, you're going to underpay. And you get a nasty surprise later. Like you come in and meet with somebody like me.And I say, hey, guess what, Joe? You owe $2,000 in tax. Wait a second, I wasn't expecting that. Or this happens.Or you over save out of fear and you starve your business and your business doesn't have the ability to grow. You don't get the things you need. Here's the problem. Both of those things can feel awful.That underpaying creates panic, the over saving creates frustration, and the worst cost cleanup. Because fixing a messy year in March or April is expensive in time. It's expensive in stress, and sometimes it's expensive in fees.And it's not that you can't recover. You can recover. But let me ask you right now, why wait until it hurts? Tell me about when taxes have snuck up on you in the past.Post your ideas right in the comments. Because in the end, we have to ask ourselves, why should we let the future you pay for current confusion? Well, let me make this simple.Right now, quarterly taxes are basically a pay as you go plan.If you're not having taxes with help from a paycheck like normal people have a paycheck when they get their paycheck every Friday or every other week, taxes come right out of that. But here's the deal. The IRS expects you to send money during the year. Not once at the end, during the year.And if that's a surprise to you, and listen, many content creators don't realize they've crossed that line until it's too late. Here's the creator version.If your content income is not withholding taxes, and truthfully, I haven't seen too many that have, you've got to withhold it for yourself. It's really that simple. You become your own payroll department.Hey, when you became a creator, did anybody tell you you were going to be your own payroll department? Well, guess what, Tag? You're it. And it's not because you're fancy. It's because you're independent. See, that's the whole point.Independent content creator, independent income. Let me tell you a real story I created that I work with. We'll call her Maya. Maya had a breakout year. I mean, she had a fantastic year.She had a few brand deals, affiliate income started taking off. She was Getting money coming in. Adsense was steady, and she did what most creators do. She took all that and she reinvested. She bought new cameras.She bought better lighting. She actually hired an editor and put some people on her team. These were great and smart business moves. But here's the problem for Maya.Nobody told her quarterly taxes were a thing. So she got to tax time and her stomach dropped. Not because she didn't owe a little. She owed thousands. I'll never forget what she told me.She said, I didn't do anything wrong, Ralph. Why do I feel like I'm being punished? And listen, while we're here, I'd love to hear your comments in the chat. Have you ever felt punished by taxes?I would love to hear from you. But with Maya, that was the moment I want to save you from. Because quarterly taxes aren't punishment.They're just the system for people like you and I. So here's the masterclass. Pause. If you've been avoiding this, I want to tell you right now, you're not lazy. You're just overloaded.And we're about to make it manageable. Honestly, it starts with this fundamental question. How do you know what to pay? Because really, that's what we're talking about today.I've already made the case. You have to pay quarterly taxes. If you. I have taxable income. Now, listen, I'm not talking about perfection.You just need a simple estimate that's going to keep you safe. Think of it like this. You're trying to avoid those two bad outcomes, that surprise Bill and a panic scramble. Because the two things don't mesh well.So we use one good enough method. And I'm going to tell you about the good enough method right now. Here are two clean approaches most creators use. Here's the first approach.Base it on this year's profit. Now listen. Profit means what's left after business expenses. It's not what came in the door. It's not what got deposited to your bank account.It's what's left over. Not your total deposits, not your gross payouts, just your net income. So that's the first approach. Look at this year's profit.Here's another approach. We can base it on last year's total tax. This is what I call the keep me safe approach. If last year's taxes were X, let's just use a simple example.And let's say last year's taxes were $2,000. Well, you're going to aim to pay around $2,000 throughout this year. Now, here's the problem.If you're growing fast, you're going to have to adjust that upwards because you're going to have more income coming in. Now, for beginning creators, this matters to you, too. Now you're saying rap. But wait a minute. I didn't pay taxes last year. That's okay.You got to understand this, too, because you can go from a tiny side income to oh, wow in just one sponsor contract. I've worked with many creators who had that oh, wow moment, and they didn't have an oh, wow feeling when taxes came around.But if you're an advanced trader. Listen, I'm not insulting your intelligence. I know you're running teams, I know you've got editors, and I know you've got some software stacks.But even advanced creators mess this up. And the reason they mess it up most of the time is because the money is fragmented. I talked a lot about that in the last show.You've got stripe here, PayPal there, platform payouts everywhere. Listen, I didn't realize I was breaking into rhyme here. And nobody's giving you one clean tax number. So you guess or you avoid.I've seen that happen so many times. But when you guess or you avoid, guess what? Both of those things create stress.And this is a great time to comment about your biggest tax stress that you've experienced in your creator journey. Just put that right in the comments. Again, if you want my help with this immediately, you can go to Content Creators accountant.com Help me.Let me tell you another story. Talk about a creator named Jordan. Jordan had multiple income streams like most creators do.He had YouTube, he had coaching, he had sponsors, he even had a digital product. Now, Jordan assumed, I'll just pay when I file. Somebody gave him that advice on Reddit or something like that. But then the fourth quarter hit.Guess what happened? Big income month, holiday sponsorship. And his product sales spiked. And then January arrived and he started thinking about taxes.And all of a sudden the money was gone. Now it had been spent on growth and had been spent on his life. And I remember Jordan told me, he said, ralph, I didn't feel irresponsible.I just felt unaware. I didn't know it. That's the creator's trap. He wasn't being reckless. It was just being untracked.And it's amazing to me how many content creators have no clue about having to pay quarterly taxes. So if you know somebody that's also a content creator, imagine, let me tell you right now, this is a great show to share with them.So you don't get blindsided at tax time. All right, let's move into our mythbuster mini segment. I hope you've been enjoying this.I've been trying to do these every week on this show, so let's get right into it. Here's a quick myth busting section. Here's myth one. Quarterly taxes are only for big creators. Nope. They're for everyone who's making money.Again, making money, net income. Who doesn't have withholding. Remember, the IRS wants you to pay them as you make the money. They want to get paid as they go. Here's myth number two.If I just write off gear, I'm fine. Well, sort of. See, write offs do help. We talked about that. Income minus expenses.So those things are going to write off, but they don't erase your taxes altogether. They reduce that profit, but you're still going to have to pay tax on whatever that net profit is at the end of the year.Now, of course, if you spend all your revenue, then you probably won't have any taxes. I'm not sure that's a good plan. Here's myth number three. I'll wait until I'm consistent. Man, I hear this one all the time.Creator income, by its very nature is not consistent. That's the whole point. You build the system because it's inconsistent. You build the system now, not after it becomes neat.Because let me tell you right now, content creator income is never going to be neat and clean. And right now, I'd love to hear some of the myths you've heard about taxes. You can put those right into the comments.Well, now let's talk about what this looks like in real life. This isn't about labels or shame, just where you are right now.I've talked about lanes on the show the last few shows, and I think that's a great place to go right now. Let's start with lane one. You're the early creator. Maybe you're under $2,000 a month. You're starting to build. You're experimenting. It's exciting.It's chaos. It's messy. Your goal here is simple. Stop mixing the money, start tracking those payouts, and start a basic tax set aside.This is where you go back to the show. We talked about setting up bank accounts. That's where I recommend setting up two basic bank accounts.A checking bank account and a savings tax account so you can start to carve out some of that. But again, you notice what I'm saying there. You're separating your money and you're starting to pull off some of that, to put it aside.That's lane one. Here's lane two, what I call the growing creator. Maybe you're in that 2,000 to $10,000 a month range. You're probably saying route. That's a big range.Well, that's. That's kind of where we're in the middle. Some months go up, some months pop, some months dip. This is where you need a repeatable system.Again, separate accounts. But I'm going to add something.I'm going to add that monthly check in because I want you to go and look at what your finances look like for the business. And in quarterly estimates that don't scare you. What can you realistically pay so you don't have that aha, surprise moment come April.That's lane two. Here's lane three. I'll call this the established creator. This is where you're making $10,000 a month, plus you got multiple streams.The problem with that is they add up fast. Now, this isn't about precision. It's about better forecasting, smarter set asides and cleaner owner pay.This is where you're taking on the role of being on the payroll department, maybe even entity planning. You might want to go back and listen to my show about LLC and S Corporation. Again, that depends on your numbers. See what I did there?No pressure, just the right next step for the lane you're in. This is a great time to comment. Which lane feels like you right now? Now you're probably wondering, Ralph.Okay, I understand where you're going, but how do I decide on this? That's a great question. Here's how I want you to decide. I want you to be calm and I want you to use this step by step approach.Here's step number one. Figure out your monthly average profit. Now, again, this is not your deposits. I'm not talking about what came in the door.I'm talking about what's left. If you paid your gear, you paid your subscriptions, you paid the editor. Whatever is left before you take any money yourself, that is your profit.So that's step one. Figure out your monthly average profit. Step two is pick a simple percentage to set aside.Now you're probably thinking, rob, what are you talking about here? This doesn't need to be perfect, just safe. Pick a percentage. We'll talk about that in a second. Here's step three.Check it monthly and adjust that quarterly. So check where your income is each month and then adjust at the end of the quarter. And step four, pay what you can predictably.So taxes stop being dramatic because listen, we got enough drama in our own lives. We'd have more, need more tax drama. Especially if you're in the content creator realm, because I know you're already living in content creator chaos.Well, now let's get to some real examples. I like to break it down for you. Here's example one. Let's say your profit is about $3,000 a month. Well, if we annualize that, that's $36,000 a year.Not bad, huh? A simple starting set aside might be 20% to 30%. I don't want to give you an exact number because everybody's situation is different.So you're saving between 600 and $900 a month for taxes, and now you're already saying, wait a second, Ralph, you said I just made 3,000. Now you're telling me I got to set aside 600 to 900amonth? Yes, I'm saying that to you. Put that in a separate account and maybe send it in quarterly.You don't want to have a penalty at the end of the year because yes, believe it or not, the IRS will charge you a penalty if you don't pay them throughout the year. A lot of people don't realize that. Here's example number two. You're starting to kick it up a notch. Your profit's about $8,000 a month.Let's annualize that. Hey, that's 96,000 here. Great job. Now you're setting aside maybe 25 to 35%. Again, it depends on your situation.So now we're talking about 2,000 to almost $3,000 a month. You'd be, Wait a minute, Rob. You said, I'm making 8,000 and now the Uncle Sam's taking three. Yeah, that what it's what it comes down to.Here's example number three. Let's say you had a one time sponsor pay you $12,000 in just one shot. Now a lot of content creators will say, hey, it's bonus time.It's time to go out and buy some stuff. I'm going to go take a trip, I'm going to buy some gear. Hold on, don't do that.You've got to pause right there and ask yourself what part of this money is tax money? Let's say you set aside 30%, that's $3,600. You got paid 12,000. I would take 3,600 and move that to that tax saving immediately.Here's example number four. Let's say last year your total tax bill was $9,000. That's a lot of money. So you got a plan for that?So a safe plan is to aim to pay around that across the same year. What does that break down to? About $2,250 per quarter. This is a great time to mention, this might be a time to reach out to me.And let's talk about your entity structure. Maybe there's some ways we can save you some of those taxes.And if you're growing fast, like I said earlier, you got to adjust these things upward so you don't get surprised. See, notice what we're doing here. We're replacing vibes with the plan.It's great to live in that vibe, that content creator culture, but that's not a plan. So let me ask you right now, does that feel better already? Let me know in the comments.Now you're probably thinking, ralph, this is a lot for me to try to cover. Can't I just work with you? Yes, you can. Absolutely. And here's where most content creators finally realize they need me.This is the moment that I see all the time. A content creator comes to me with momentum, they're proud, they're building, things are starting to work.And then they say, ralph, I think I'm doing okay, but I'm kind of scared to look.So we open up their payouts, we look at the AdSense, we look at the stripe and the PayPal and the sponsors, and we look at those affiliate dashboards and we realize something. They build a business, but they haven't built a system. And it's not because they're careless.It's because nobody told them how to be the money person too. Yes, you also have to be an accountant. So now I've told you, you gotta be a creator, a payroll department and an accountant. That's where I come in.I'm not here to change your creativity. You live in that realm. I'm here to build the system behind your creativity so your content can grow without your stress growing too.Look, the bottom line is I'm going to try to figure out ways to help you keep more of your hard earned money. That's what I do. That's the whole purpose of what I do. So if you're interested in doing that, let's talk.All right, let's move into our weekly audit section. We're going to do a self, a quick self audit out loud. And do it out loud if you can, if you're really bold. Share your answers in the comments.Here's question number one. Do you know what you made last month in profit, I guarantee most content creators be like, wait a minute, Ralph, I'm not sure.Now, again, I'm not talking about deposits. I'm talking about profit. So do you know what you made last month in profit? Guess what? That's something you need to know. Here's question number two.If taxes were due tomorrow, would you know what to send? This is kind of the whole purpose of what we talked about today. Maybe you feel better about that. You're understanding.Okay, Ralph said I got to understand what came in, minus the expenses, that's the profit. And then he gave me a percentage to use, so. So if taxes were due tomorrow, would you know what to send? Here's question number three.Do you have a separate place where tax money lives, or like everything else, is it just mixed together with your spending money? That's one you gotta know the answer to. And here's question number four. When a payout hits, do you feel calm or do you feel a little financial fuzzy?And listen, if any of this feels uncomfortable, that's not shame. That's a signal. It's a signal that you're ready for a cleaner system. Now, of course, I can already hear objections shouting out loud at this point.If I could hear you through the screen, I'd hear you saying this. So let me handle those objections. I already know you're thinking a lot of people are probably shouting, but, Ralph, I'm not big enough.I don't make that much money. I don't make a couple thousand dollars a month. Well, guess what? You don't need to be big. The irs, you're going to be on their radar.You just need to be clear with what you've got going on. Here's another one. I'll do it later. I hear that one. Later is usually more expensive and it's much more stressful.Talk to my clients in April when I give them the phone call and I say, guess what? You owe X number of dollars. Like that's impossible, Ralph. That's the problem with the I do it later mentality. Here's a great one.I don't want to spend any money. I don't want to spend any money, too. I get it. But messy taxes, that cost you, too.And as I said earlier, the IRS charges penalties if you don't pay them as you go. And those penalties can be pretty steep. Here's another one I hear constantly. Ralph, I'm already overwhelmed. Of course you are.You're doing everything. Remember what I said. Now, you're the Content creator. You're the writer, you're the copywriter, you're the editor, you're the payroll.And now you're accountant. And now you're the tax guy. But here's the line I want you to keep. You don't need motivation, you just need a system. And clarity.Because clarity pays you back. In sleep, in peace, in and in. Fewer expensive surprises. So here's the next step.If you really want calm in your content creator chaos, go to content creators accountant.com help me. And when you book with me, here's what happens. You tell me what you do. Tell me all about your content.We look at your payouts and we map a simple tax plan just for you based on your numbers. No pressure, just a plan. So if you're tired of guessing, this is the cleanest move you can make. Content creators accountant.com help me.And let me leave you with this. You're not behind. You're not bad with money. You're a creator. Building a real business in a weird money world. That's what we live in as creators.It's a weird money world. And quarterly taxes don't have to scare you anymore. You just need a system. And you can build that system one calm decision at a time.So if this helped you today, I'm encourage you subscribe and follow and share it with somebody else. Because this channel exists for one reason.I translate taxes into creator language so you can build a creator business that last and keep more of your hard earned money. And if you want help putting this into place, you already know where to go. Content Creators accountant.com/help me. I'm Ralph Estep Jr.I am the content creator's accountant and I'll see you next time on the show.

Speaker B00:22:52

I'm a creator on fire Burning up the sky Turning every knowing the reasons why I got a vision and a voice they can't ignore Every beat I drive just opens the door.