Thoughts on why my federal income tax payments don't appear on my P&L (QB Self Employed)? I understand that fed taxes are not deductible, but they are a business expense.

Welcome to the Community, @stephaniegrayre-. 

As an insight, a deduction occurs when an expense is subtracted from a business owner or an individual's taxable income. Hence, it won't appear on your Profit and Loss report. 

For more information, you can also check out this article to learn more information on how QBSE estimates your federal quarterly tax payments: How QuickBooks Self-Employed tracks self-employment taxes. 

Feel free to message again if you have additional concerns. Take care!

Thanks Katherine.  I’m not quite following you.  To be more clear, I wrote a check to the IRS as an estimated tax payment, which I classified as “Federal Income Tax”.  The check doesn’t appear on any of the standard reports, business or personal.

Thanks for getting back here, stephaniegrayre-.

I'd be glad to clear things up. 

In QuickBooks Self-Employed, the estimated taxes is for federal taxes only. This is why the information is excluded in the Profit & Loss report. You can run the Tax summary report instead.

Here's how:

1. Go to Reports on the left panel.
2. In the Tax summary section, select the tax year from the drop-down.
3. Click the View link.

Here's a sample screenshot for a visual reference:

You can also read these articles for more information: 

• Quarterly Estimated Taxes Explained.
• QuickBooks Self-Employed Overview

I'm always around if there's anything else you need with QuickBooks Self-Employed. Just leave a reply below and I'll get back to you as soon as I can, Take care!

Because federal income tax are not a business expense.  They are a personal expense to you as an individual since you are self employed without a seperate legal idenity.  If you look at your tax filing forms, you will see that business expenses are are deducted from income before your individal taxes are calculated.