<prompt> Human: My co-workers always say that overtime stops being useful after 20 hours a paycheck or so. No one knows any actual specifics, but the general consensus is that overtime gets taxed more, so the difference between 20 and 30 hours wont significantly raise your paycheck. Is there any truth to this? If more taxes get taken out. Does that mean that it would help me get a bigger refund come tax time?  <response>: No. They are falling into a well known trap about graduated income taxes.They are presuming the entire amount is taxed based on the higher bracket, but in actual fact only the money you make above the bracket line is taxed that amount. So the marginal return IS smaller, but it would still surpass your normal pay. That is, once you get to a higher bracket you make slightly less money per hour than you did previous. But this is only judged on a yearly basis, not per paycheckYour refund is more complicated, but yes you should be getting more back - but you will also be paying more in.Edit: The one thing to be careful of in this situation is not taxes, but that you will be upsetting the people you work for. If they dont want you to put in more than X hours of overtime you should be aware of that. 