Qualified Overtime Estimator for California Firefighters

Choose your filing status and enter your estimated 2026 modified adjusted gross income, which drives the phaseout. Pick your department's FLSA work period, enter the hours you work in a typical one, your hourly rate, and your federal marginal bracket. The last field is the one that decides everything: your estimated annual hours above the FLSA ceiling, paid at time and a half.

That last number is the hard one, and guessing at it produces a meaningless result. Your payroll or finance office can tell you how many of your overtime hours fall above the ceiling rather than below it. If you never cross the ceiling, enter zero and the tool will say so plainly.

You get back an estimated qualified overtime amount, the estimated deduction after the cap and the phaseout are applied, and a rough federal benefit at the bracket you selected. If the hours you typed in a typical work period do not square with the annual figure you entered, the tool prints a cross-check note so you can see the mismatch.

Nothing you enter is saved or sent anywhere. No email field, no account. Reload the page and it has forgotten you.

Every rule below comes from the statute or from published federal guidance. None of it is a house interpretation of how the deduction ought to work.

The FLSA 7(k) ceiling

Fire protection employees fall under a special overtime provision rather than the 40 hour week. The ceilings are 212 hours in a 28 day work period, 106 hours in 14 days, and 53 hours in 7 days. Only hours above the ceiling that applies to your department are federally required overtime. Hours your memorandum of understanding pays as overtime below that line are wages, and they do not count for this deduction.

Only the premium half counts

On qualifying hours paid at time and a half, the deduction reaches the extra half, not the whole payment. The tool multiplies your qualifying hours by your rate by 0.5 for exactly that reason.

The caps

$12,500 per return for a single filer or head of household, and $25,000 for married filing jointly. Anything above that is trimmed to the cap before the phaseout is applied.

The phaseout

The deduction is reduced by $100 for each whole $1,000 of modified adjusted gross income above $150,000 single or $300,000 joint. A partial $1,000 is disregarded. The tool rounds down accordingly.

Married filing separately

Not eligible. If you select it, the tool says so and stops rather than printing a number that does not exist.

One California detail that catches people: the state does not conform to this deduction. Whatever it does for your federal return, your California return sees no benefit from it.

This is an education tool that exists mostly to show people a smaller number than the headline led them to expect. Its limits matter.

• It is not a tax return, and it is not tax advice. Confirm your situation with a licensed CPA before you plan around any figure here. The deduction interacts with the rest of your return in ways a single-purpose calculator cannot see.
• It cannot count your hours for you. The hours above the ceiling are an input you supply. If that number is a guess, the output is a guess. Payroll holds the real answer.
• Your W-2 controls. Box 12 code TT is the reported figure. This estimate has no standing against it.
• It excludes several kinds of extra pay. Double time, holiday premiums, and comp time that has not been paid out are outside the qualified amount.
• There is no FICA effect and no California benefit. This is a federal income tax deduction only. Social Security and Medicare withholding do not change, and your state return does not.
• The federal benefit line is rough. It multiplies the deduction by the marginal bracket you picked. Real tax outcomes depend on your full return, credits, and whether the deduction moves you across a bracket line.
• Withholding does not adjust on its own. The 2026 Form W-4 lets you account for an expected deduction in Step 4(b). If you leave it alone, any benefit arrives when you file rather than in your checks.
• It is 2026 only. Caps, thresholds, and guidance change. Treat this as a snapshot.

The people with the largest overtime lines are frequently the people the phaseout targets hardest, so a big paystub number and a big deduction are not the same thing.