Story by Stacy Johnson CPA
Next Tuesday, Sept. 15, is the IRS deadline for third-quarter estimated taxes. If you’re retired and you’ve never sent the IRS a check outside of April, you may be wondering why I’m bothering you with this.
IRA and 401(k) withdrawals. Every dollar you pull from a traditional account is ordinary income. Your custodian will withhold 10% by default on a one-time IRA withdrawal, or 20% on a one-time 401(k) withdrawal, according to IRS Form W-4R. You can adjust the IRA rate up or down; the 401(k) rate can only go higher. For most retirees, neither default is close to enough.
Social Security. The Social Security Administration says your benefits become taxable once your combined income passes $25,000 if you’re single or $32,000 if you’re married filing jointly. Yet nothing is withheld unless you ask.
Side income. Consulting, a rental, selling stuff online, part-time work paid on a 1099. Nobody withholds a penny on any of it.
Add it up and you can owe several thousand dollars in April with nothing paid in. That’s when the IRS reminds you that we live in a pay-as-you-go system, and April was never the only deadline.
The IRS calls it an underpayment penalty, but it works like interest. The rate is set quarterly. In IR-2026-98, released Aug. 21, the IRS said the rate for individuals stays at 7% through Dec. 31.
Let’s run the numbers. Say you’ll owe $6,000 for 2026 and you have no withholding. Your Sept. 15 installment is $1,500. Skip it and pay everything on April 15 instead, and that $1,500 sits unpaid for seven months at 7%. That’s about $61.
Not ruinous. But do it for all four installments and you’re pushing nearly $250 for the year, for nothing. And I know plenty of retirees who’ll drive across town to save $5 on a prescription. Let’s not hand the IRS over $200 for the privilege of being disorganized. Worse, the penalty is an announcement that you don’t have a system. And without a system, next year’s bill will surprise you too.
You don’t have to hit your tax bill on the nose. The IRS offers two safe harbors. Land in either and there’s no penalty, even if you still owe money in April.
Safe harbor No. 1: You owe less than $1,000 after subtracting withholding and refundable credits. Simple. If your withholding nearly covers you, you’re fine.
Safe harbor No. 2: Through withholding and estimated payments, you’ve paid in at least 90% of this year’s tax, or 100% of last year’s tax, whichever is smaller. If your 2025 adjusted gross income topped $150,000 ($75,000 married filing separately), the prior-year number becomes 110%, per Form 1040-ES.
The prior-year rule is the one I’d point most retirees toward. Look at line 24 of your 2025 return, total tax. Pay that amount in over 2026, in four roughly equal pieces, and the IRS leaves you alone. No guessing what this year’s income will be.
Only caveat: If your income jumped this year, say from a big IRA withdrawal, the prior-year harbor still protects you from the penalty. It won’t protect you from the bill. Set the difference aside.
Here’s what I tell anyone who hates writing checks to the IRS four times a year: Don’t. Use withholding instead.
Withholding and estimated payments are treated differently, and the difference is in your favor. The IRS treats withholding as paid in four equal installments across the year, no matter when the money was actually withheld. Estimated payments count only on the day you send them.
Read that again, because it’s the whole trick. Tax withheld in December counts as if a quarter of it were paid back in April. Nobody withheld anything from you in April? Doesn’t matter.
Two ways to use it:
Withhold from Social Security. Fill out Form W-4V and give it to Social Security, not the IRS. You pick 7%, 10%, 12% or 22% of your monthly benefit, or change it online through your my Social Security account.
Pick a percentage that, combined with any pension withholding, covers your total bill.
The year-end IRA move. If you’re behind in December, take an IRA withdrawal and tell your custodian to withhold a big chunk of it, even 100%, using Form W-4R.
The money goes straight to the IRS as withholding, which means it’s treated as paid evenly all year. Your penalty, if you had one, largely evaporates.
Yes, the withdrawal itself is taxable income. But if you’re taking required minimum distributions anyway, you can direct the whole RMD’s withholding toward your bill. For a lot of retirees, that one December transaction replaces four quarterly checks.
If you’re retired and missed Tuesday, this is your fix. You’ve got until Dec. 31 to make the withholding catch up.
If you’d rather stay on the quarterly system, or you’re too far behind for withholding alone to close the gap, pay by Tuesday.
Skip the paper voucher and the stamp. Use IRS Direct Pay. It’s free, it pulls from your checking account, and you select “estimated tax” and tax year 2026. You can schedule the payment ahead and change or cancel it up to two days before it goes out.
Pay late, and the meter runs from Sept. 15 until the day the money arrives. It’s not a cliff, it’s a slope. Pay a week late and it costs pennies. Wait until April and you’re back to the $61 example above.
Stuck for cash? Pay what you can. The penalty is figured on the shortfall, so every dollar in reduces it.
The IRS isn’t hunting retirees. But the tax system was built around paychecks, and once you stop getting one, it’s your job to replace the withholding your employer used to handle.
You’ve got three defenses: pay estimates on time, aim at a safe harbor, or let withholding do the work. The third one is the one I’d choose. Set a percentage on Social Security, adjust your IRA withholding in December, and you’ll never think about Sept. 15 again.
One last thing. If you retired after age 62 this year or last and underpaid because you didn’t know the rules, the IRS can waive the penalty for reasonable cause. Ask. It’s the rare time the system gives newcomers a break.
September 08, 2026
Maricopa County Elections has announced that voters will have a one-page ballot to complete in the 2026 General Election, different from the 2024 election in which voters filled out a two-page ballot. The 20-inch, one-page ballot is primarily possible because fewer statewide measures will be on the ballot than in 2024.
While there will be one fewer page than in 2024, the number of contests remain similar. The average Maricopa County Voter will have more than 80 contests on their ballot, including:
Per statute, partisan candidates are listed in order of which party received the most votes in that county for governor in the previous general election. Democrat Katie Hobbs received the most in 2022, therefore, the democrat will appear first in partisan contests for office.
The length of a ballot is impacted by the number of contests a voter is eligible to vote in, and this may include justice of the peace and constable contests; school district candidate contests and measures; and city or town candidate contests and measures. Voters can log on to CandidateList.Maricopa.Vote for more information about what will be on the ballot so they can vote confidently in the upcoming election.
For individuals who do not vote early, the county is planning to offer 254 Vote Centers where they can cast a ballot on Election Day. The Board of Supervisors passed a resolution last week outlining proposed locations. Maricopa County offers a Vote Center model that allows people to visit any voting location and receive a ballot printed on-site with the contests they are eligible to vote.
On Sept. 18, Locations.Maricopa.Vote will post all vote center locations and hours of operation. When early voting begins on Oct. 7, the website will offer up-to-the-minute wait times for these locations. On average, voting locations on Election Day are 1.2 miles apart and geographically dispersed throughout the county to maximize voter access and convenience.
The last day to register to vote for the Nov. 3 General Election is Oct. 5. All voters are encouraged to log on to their voter dashboard at BeBallotReady.Vote to ensure their information is up to date. About the Maricopa County Elections Department The Maricopa County Elections Department serves more than 2.5 million registered voters. They are responsible for candidate filings, in-person voting and Vote Centers, hiring thousands of elections workers for each election, as well as the tabulation of ballots. The work supports elections in Maricopa County cities, towns, school districts and special districts.
Translate, hold to ear. Google Translate's two new tricks:
On iPhone, "listening mode" lets you hold the phone to your ear like a call and hear a translation of whoever's talking, no earbuds needed.
On Android, Live Translate now runs in the background, so you can check the map or your hotel confirmation without killing the conversation.
Both are rolling out now. Fall trip booked? Update the app before you go.
Your car is broadcasting your contacts: Ever paired your phone with a rental car? Your contacts, call log and texts are probably still sitting in that dashboard for the next driver to scroll through.
Before you return it, tap the car's Settings > Bluetooth (or Phone), find your name and hit Delete or Forget.
Same goes for the loaner from the dealership and your buddy's truck. Your phone book doesn't need a road trip of its own.
Gmail can make an email self-destruct. Draft your message, click the lock icon at the bottom of the compose window and pick an expiration date. It’s called Confidential Mode, and it also blocks forwarding, copying, printing and downloading. When the clock runs out, poof, the email is gone.
A person received a text from her bank asking whether she had made an online purchase of a $1,200 laptop. The charge was put on hold, awaiting her response. The message appeared legitimate because it came from a number that had previously sent valid fraud alerts. Person replied, “No.” The bank texted back that because the purchase was unauthorized, the card was frozen and person was instructed to call its fraud department.
If you haven’t done this already, sign up to receive text messages, emails and even phone calls from your financial institution so they can reach you in various ways about suspicious activity for every one of my bank accounts, credit cards and investment accounts.
So, when you get that text, email or phone call, double-check it’s truly your financial institution trying to reach you. Look up the phone number on the back of your debit or credit card or statement to call your bank. DON’T rely on an online search, you have to be careful you don’t land on a fake site. While waiting to speak with a bank representative check your email for additional notifications about the compromised card.
Rather than hacking your phone or spoofing your bank’s number, fraudsters use automated bots to submit your email address to hundreds of online sign-up forms simultaneously. The scammer’s objective is to flood your email inbox so you overlook real-time alerts from your bank. This buys the thief or criminal syndicate time to complete unauthorized transactions, hide account change notices or access other compromised accounts.
Here is how to protect yourself if this happens to you:
· Treat a flood of messages as a warning sign. If you get swamped with an unusually large amount of email, assume a financial account or credit card has just been breached and respond to any real-time alerts right away.
· Resist the urge to respond to the messages. Except for contacting your financial institution, don’t do anything else. Cybercriminals often link email bombing with bogus help desk impersonation scams. They want to trick you into granting them remote access to your computer so they can steal data or charge you fraudulent fees, or both. Don’t click on anything”. If you’re not sure what to do, you can get free help by contacting the Identity Theft Resource Center at 888-400-5530 or visit idtheftcenter.org.
· An offer of help is part of the con. If someone calls or sends a pop-up offering to clean up your inbox, ignore it. It is not Microsoft, Apple or Google calling. It’s most certainly the scammer reaching out.
· Check your accounts immediately. Log into your banking and credit card apps to check for pending charges you haven’t authorized.
· Do a search before you purge. Look for terms such as “password,” “order confirmation,” or the names of your financial institutions to preserve key alerts.
· Then, do a deep dive into your email. Look for authentic alerts hidden in the noise. After making sure that no financial notifications were buried in the pile, the reader said, “I did bulk deletions for most of the items.”
Under the federal Fair Credit Billing Act, you can avoid being held responsible for unauthorized charges, provided you notify your card issuer within 60 days from the date it sends out your credit card statement.
Although email bombing isn’t a new scam strategy, its frequency has exploded in the past couple of years. Cybersecurity firm eSentire reported that email-bombing and impersonation attacks surged 1,450 percent in 2025 compared to the year before, with fraudsters using the inbox flood to distract their targets.
There are several reasons why you may receive an email notifying you that your password is about to expire. These include:
To better protect your account, WildApricot passwords expire after 365 days. In the event WildApricot requires you to change or update your password prior to the expiration date, you will be notified by email and a pop-up notification from your WildApricot admin backend.
Note: WildApricot passwords are case-sensitive.
Beat the phone tree. When the robot answers, say, “I need to cancel my service” or “I’m returning a call.” Straight to a human. Asked for your account number? Hit #. Stuck in a loop? Babble some nonsense three times, and most systems transfer you.
The secret button on the back of your iPhone.... Double-tap the back of your iPhone, and the flashlight comes on. Triple-tap for a screenshot. You choose. Settings, search Back Tap, assign double and triple. Works through most cases.
Make your passwords impenetrable. Pick four random words, like coffee-tractor-maple-September, that would take centuries to crack. Of course you will need to memorize it or write it down.....
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