<prompt> Human: My father owns his own small business, and hes always paid his quarterly and yearly taxes on time with no problems. This year, however, the IRS is asking him to pay next years taxes now, based on what he made this year. If he doesnt pay, he will be charged a penalty and incur huge interest on things. If he does pay and pays too much, the government will give him the difference minus interest. Has anyone else had this problem? Is this legal? Is there any way around it?  <response>: Heres a more likely scenario...When you dad filed his 2012 tax returns, he owed a lot of money his estimate payments were too small. If he had a CPA do is returns, they would should have automatically generated a set of 1040-ES forms for paying the proper amount of estimated taxes on his 2013 income. The IRS does not let you wait until the end of the year to pay most of the tax burden for your current years income. For employees, its withheld from our paychecks. For self-employed or corporations, they must file reasonable estimate payments throughout the year. If at the end of the year it turns out you didnt do such a good job estimating, then youve got to pay more in as you go.If he didnt use a CPA, or they didnt give him these estimate forms, then its possible the IRS instigated this notification after reviewing his previous years tax situation.If his expected financial situation for 2013 is similar to 2012, he should pay these estimates or risk another penalty when his 2013 taxes are filed and he owes a big chunk again. Standard procedure.They are basically saying that if he waits until April 2014 to pay the largest chunk of the tax due on his 2013 income, they will penalize his ass. They are not likely to be asking him to pay taxes on 2014 income, but rather to prepay his 2013 taxes that he might want to put off paying until tax day of 2014.Any of this sound familiar? 