Columbus to Genoa Township
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Columbus ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
1.5%
Genoa Township, on income earned there
Home city charges
2.5%
Columbus, residents
Credit back
$900
a share of the work tax
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
no extra local taxColumbus credits only part of what Genoa Township takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Columbus bar is the credit it hands back. Municipal income tax only — state, federal and payroll tax apply on top, and an Ohio school district income tax may too.
What this commute actually costs
- Here is the good news. Working in Genoa Township costs you nothing extra in local tax. Columbus charges residents about 2.5%, and it credits back every dollar Genoa Township collects from you. Either way your bill is $1,500 a year. What changes is which city keeps the money, not how much of it you hand over.
- This is closer than it looks. Columbus covers what Genoa Township takes, but only up to a limit, and Genoa Township is $600 a year short of it. Raise the work rate past that and the commute stops being free.
- Genoa Township shows just one commuting route in this data, and it starts in Columbus. Roughly 1,419 people make the trip. That is not the whole picture of who works there, only the part large enough to be published.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Genoa Township withholds about 1.5% on income earned there, and Columbus, which levies about 2.5% on residents, credits that payment in full without reaching its own ceiling. Liability at the reference salary is therefore $1,500 — precisely what the same earnings would attract with no commute at all. What the arrangement alters is the division of revenue between Genoa Township and Columbus, not the sum leaving the worker's pay.
- The margin is worth knowing, because it is not large. Columbus credits tax paid to Genoa Township only up to a ceiling set as a share of income, and Genoa Township's levy currently sits below it with $600 of annual room to spare at the reference salary. Were Genoa Township to raise its rate past that point, the excess would cease to be credited and would fall on the worker rather than on either treasury.
- Within this dataset Genoa Township draws a single recorded commuting flow of qualifying size — the one from Columbus, carrying roughly 1,419 workers. That reflects the reporting floor rather than the labor market: smaller flows certainly exist and fall below the threshold at which Census origin-destination statistics are published. No ranking against sibling routes is therefore available for this workplace.
Where the money goes
A $75,000 salary
- Federal income tax$7,670
- Social Security and Medicare$5,738
- State income tax$1,346
- Yours$60,246
| Federal income tax10.23% | $7,670 |
|---|---|
| Social Security and Medicare7.65% | $5,738 |
| State income tax1.79% | $1,346 |
| Yours80.33% | $60,246 |
The arithmetic, step by step
| Genoa Township takes, on income earned there | $900 |
|---|---|
| Columbus charges residents | $1,500 |
| Less the credit Columbus gives back | $900 |
| Total local tax | $1,500 |
| If you also lived in Genoa Township | $1,500 |
| Difference | $0 |
On a reference salary of $60,000 a year. Both rates and the credit ceiling are shares of income, so every figure scales with your own pay.
What this page does not cover
- Two guesses about this are wrong, and they miss in opposite directions. The rates are not added together. Nor do you simply pay whichever is higher, which is how it works across the border in Pennsylvania. Genoa Township taxes what you earn there, Columbus taxes everything you earn, and then Columbus decides how much of the first bill to give back.
- These figures rest on a local rule, not a state one. Columbus decides how much credit to give for tax already paid to Genoa Township. It is worth confirming the current position with the city or its collection agency, because this is the part most likely to have changed.
- Watch for one more local tax. School district income tax is separate from what Columbus and Genoa Township charge, and plenty of Ohio districts levy it. Working elsewhere makes no difference to it, and no credit offsets it.
- One tax is on this page and it is the city one. State tax, federal tax and Social Security all still come out of your pay. None of them change when you cross the line between Columbus and Genoa Township. That is exactly why they are left out.
- Every dollar amount here uses a salary of sixty thousand a year. It is a benchmark, not a guess at what people in Columbus earn, because nobody publishes average pay for single municipalities. Scale the figures to your own salary. The rates and the credit work the same way at any income, so the Genoa Township conclusion holds.
- Two misreadings bracket the correct answer and both are common. Ohio does not simply add the two rates together, which would overstate the charge; nor does it apply only the higher of them, which is Pennsylvania's rule and would understate it wherever the credit is partial. Genoa Township taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Columbus taxes its residents on everything, and Columbus then credits some, all or none of what Genoa Township collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Columbus rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Columbus's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Columbus alone. Ohio's uniform framework governs definitions, filing and withholding; it does not compel any municipality to credit tax paid to another. A council vote in Columbus can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Genoa Township or in state law, which is a materially different exposure from a rate set by statute.
- Ohio school district income tax is a separate levy from municipal income tax and is excluded from these figures. It is imposed by school district of residence rather than by municipality, it is unaffected by employment in Genoa Township, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Columbus whose school district levies one owes it in addition to everything shown here, which is why the totals on this page are a municipal position rather than a complete local one.
- Only municipal income tax is modeled. Ohio's state income tax, federal income tax and payroll taxes all apply in addition and are invariant to the boundary between Columbus and Genoa Township, which is precisely why they are excluded: isolating the layer that responds to the commute is the point of the comparison. A complete tax position requires adding them; a comparison of the two locations does not.
- Dollar figures are computed against a stated reference salary of sixty thousand rather than a municipal wage average, which no published source provides for Ohio municipalities. Both rates and the credit ceiling are proportional to income, so every figure scales linearly: the Columbus to Genoa Township differential doubles at twice the salary and halves at half of it, and the rate relationship holds at every level. The one caveat is that whether the ceiling binds at all is itself scale-invariant here, because it too is expressed as a share of income rather than as a fixed dollar cap.
Questions people ask
Do I pay local tax twice — once where I work and once where I live?
You are taxed by both, then given credit for one. Working in Genoa Township costs about 1.5%; living in Columbus costs about 2.5%, reduced by whatever share of the work tax the home city recognizes.
Does working in a different town cost me anything?
Not a cent on this one. The crossing changes where the money is sent, not how much of it leaves, so your total matches a stay-at-home commute.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
Yes — 1,419 people make this exact journey, according to the federal employment survey that tracks where workers live against where they work. Routes below a volume floor are not published, so a page existing here means the commute is real and measured.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Genoa Township on the basis of work location at about 1.5%, Columbus on residence at about 2.5%. The residence municipality grants a credit for tax paid to the work municipality, commonly capped as a share of income. Net liability is the residence tax less that credit, floored at zero, plus the work tax.
Why is the marginal cost of this crossing zero?
Marginal liability from working outside the residence jurisdiction is zero on this route. The crossing alters the distribution of revenue between jurisdictions but not the employee's total. ⚠️ This is route-specific and does not generalise to other pairs in the same dataset.
What is the basis for including this route?
Route volume is 1,419 workers, sourced from Census LODES origin-destination data. Pairs below the publication threshold are excluded rather than imputed, so page existence reflects measured commuting volume.