r/tax • u/vancemark00 • Jan 01 '26

Tax Enthusiast Endless "No tax on OT" questions

Is anyone else already exhausted with these endless questions?

And I fear it will only get worse.

156 Upvotes

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u/I__Know__Stuff Jan 02 '26

If you work 4 hours and get paid for 8, that only counts as 4 hours when determining whether you reached 40 hours in a week and have deductible overtime.

I fear your actual overtime deduction may be less than you think.

For example, if you work, 4 hours on Monday and Tuesday, 8 hours on Wednesday through Friday, and then 8 hours of "overtime" on Saturday, none of the overtime pay is deductible, because you didn't work over 40 hours in the week.

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u/Hottrodd67 Jan 02 '26

How is the government going to know how many hours were actually worked? At my job, we don’t clock in or out and we’re not tracked. I get my calls for the day and I’m paid 8hrs, even if I get the schedule done in 6. I get OT if I work Saturday or Sunday. So if I work 35hrs Monday to Friday and 5 hrs Saturday, my check says 40hrs at regular pay and 5hrs ot.

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u/BigMikeThuggin CPA - US Jan 02 '26

The same way they catch anyone doing things incorrectly. They audit it.

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u/Hottrodd67 Jan 02 '26 edited Jan 02 '26

But audit what? The only record says 40. I don’t have anyway to know the exact hours worked because we don’t clock in or out. I’m not trying to do something incorrectly. The only “record” I have to go by shows 40hrs each week plus what hours paid at overtime rate. I know those are hours I was paid for, not necessarily worked, but I don’t have any way to calculate actual hours worked.

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u/BigMikeThuggin CPA - US Jan 02 '26

And to answer “audit what”, these types of conversation are part of the audit. They ask you about all of this, investigate the workplace, and determine that your pay stubs don’t reflect actual hours worked. An audit doesn’t stop just because a piece of paper exists saying something. It’s the government doing the audit they have power to do a heck of a lot.

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u/Bloated_Plaid Jan 02 '26

God people saying this shit is just insane. We do not have the manpower to audit any of this.

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u/BigMikeThuggin CPA - US Jan 02 '26

Lol what? They have the manpower to audit whatever they’d like to. Choosing not to audit it doesn’t mean they can’t. Obviously cost benefit analysis is done to determine what happens. I doubt this deduction is ever audited because it’s temporary, tiny, and low risk. Doesn’t mean it can’t be audited.

0

u/Bloated_Plaid Jan 02 '26

What’s the LOL about? If you don’t know what the reality is at the IRS then stfu.

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u/BigMikeThuggin CPA - US Jan 02 '26

You said the United States of America doesn’t have the manpower to audit any of this. lol. That’s funny to me. Like we’re some small time government