Separate voluntary qualified tips, mandatory service charges, business profit, the allowed deduction and the actual ordinary federal tax change. A deduction is neither an exemption from reporting nor a payroll-tax reduction.

Final occupations and unresolved facts

The final Treasury regulation lists 71 occupations across eight categories, with an effective date of June 12,2026. Select the actual code and compare the official description with the work performed. A similar title alone does not establish eligibility. The calculator keeps unresolved answers visible rather than silently assigning a broad category to a qualifying occupation. The official titles remain identified as English Treasury titles so users can verify the source terminology.

Payment facts matter as well. Qualified tips must satisfy the voluntary-payment and reporting requirements. Mandatory service charges remain ordinary income and are entered separately. Lawful-service, payor-relationship and tip-pooling restrictions can require additional analysis; manager or supervisor pool distributions do not automatically qualify. The final occupation list and ongoing SSTB transition guidance are distinct, and neither decides a business’s separate QBI classification. Married taxpayers must file jointly, and the recipient must meet the valid-for-work SSN requirement. The tool asks whether that requirement is met, without collecting the number. No employer document upload is requested.

Self-employed tips require a full ledger

In self-employed mode, entered net business profit already includes tips and mandatory business charges once. Regular SE tax is based on net earnings and coordinates Social Security wage-base room with the worker’s own W-2 wages. Half of regular SE tax reduces AGI and the QBI base; Additional Medicare tax does not receive that half-SE treatment. Enter eligible health and retirement deductions separately. Allocability of additional deductions to the section 224 net-income limit can require a factual determination, so that limit uses an explicit entered allocation.

Allowed section 224 tips are excluded from QBI. The model recomputes the QBI percentage, taxable-income cap and applicable wage/property/SSTB limits before and after the tip deduction. It also models the enacted 2026 active-QBI minimum where material participation is declared. In the stated $100,000-profit/$10,000-tip example, SE tax is $14,129.55 and half-SE is $7,064.775. QBI deductions are $15,367.045 and $13,367.045; ordinary federal taxes are $8,234.9996 and $6,474.9996. The saving is $1,760, not the $2,200 marginal-rate shortcut.

Limits, projections and privacy

Cap qualified reported tips at $25,000 per return, not per spouse. Reduce that capped amount by $100 for each complete $1,000 of MAGI above the filing threshold, then apply the business net-income limit where relevant. The deduction does not reduce its own MAGI. A first excess dollar produces no phaseout step, and smaller tip amounts can reach zero before the full-cap ceiling. Recomputed QBI minimums or phase-ins can occasionally produce a negative counterfactual saving; the receipt preserves that signed result.

Published 2025 and 2026 policy supports the authoritative rows. Future 2027–2028 scenarios hold 2026 tax and QBI assumptions constant, including the assumed $400/$1,000 active-QBI minimum; they are not published future indexed values. The provision expires after 2028 under current law. This model covers one ordinary-income Schedule C trade, excluding credits, capital-gain rates, state taxes, cooperatives, multiple businesses and QBI carryovers. Numeric device saving is optional. Share defaults to a blank link, with financial sharing explicitly reviewed; Copy, CSV and Print contain the receipt. Confirm your facts before filing.