During this last week, we converted a portion of a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. This conversion causes us to owe taxes. However, since this happened in the 4th quarter of 2012, if I pay the additional taxes by 15 January, I continue to be current?

Maybe. Maybe you don't have to pay anything in advance to avoid a penalty. Maybe you have to file an annualized income statement with your return to avoid a penalty.

Rather than rewrite the book on how to avoid the ES penalty (there are multiple ways), I'll just refer all to Pub 505.

Phil
Rule Your Retirement Home Fool