How to Estimate Quarterly Taxes as a Gig Worker

How quarterly estimates work and who owes them

If you expect to owe $1,000 or more in tax on gig income, the IRS generally wants you to pay estimated taxes four times a year on Form 1040-ES rather than all at once in April. To estimate each payment, project your net self-employment income (gross earnings minus deductible expenses such as the IRS standard mileage deduction, 70 cents per mile for 2025 business use), apply the 15.3% self-employment tax — 12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare — and add your federal income-tax bracket, plus state income tax where it applies.

UnifyOne by 1Commerce makes this concrete: it tracks net self-employment income across every connected platform after mileage and expenses, and Tax Autopilot forecasts each quarter's Form 1040-ES payment from that live number — so your estimate reflects what you actually earned, not a rough guess.

What a quarterly estimate should account for

A sound quarterly estimate is built from a consistent set of inputs:

• ✦Net self-employment income after mileage and deductible expenses.
• ✦The 15.3% self-employment tax, which applies even in low brackets.
• ✦Your federal income-tax bracket on top of self-employment tax.
• ✦State income tax where applicable, added to the federal estimate.
• ✦Payment on IRS Form 1040-ES at each quarterly deadline.

Frequently Asked Questions