Columbus to Madison Township
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Columbus ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
1%
Madison Township, on income earned there
Home city charges
2.5%
Columbus, residents
Credit back
$600
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 Madison 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 Madison Township costs you nothing extra in local tax. Columbus charges residents about 2.5%, and it credits back every dollar Madison 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 Madison Township takes, but only up to a limit, and Madison Township is $900 a year short of it. Raise the work rate past that and the commute stops being free.
- Madison Township shows just one commuting route in this data, and it starts in Columbus. Roughly 662 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. Madison Township withholds about 1% 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 Madison 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 Madison Township only up to a ceiling set as a share of income, and Madison Township's levy currently sits below it with $900 of annual room to spare at the reference salary. Were Madison 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 Madison Township draws a single recorded commuting flow of qualifying size — the one from Columbus, carrying roughly 662 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
| Madison Township takes, on income earned there | $600 |
|---|---|
| Columbus charges residents | $1,500 |
| Less the credit Columbus gives back | $600 |
| Total local tax | $1,500 |
| If you also lived in Madison 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
- Do not add the two rates up, and do not assume the bigger one simply wins. Neither is how Ohio works. Both Madison Township and Columbus charge you. Columbus may then hand back what Madison Township took, or part of it, or none of it. Everything on this page turns on which of those it does.
- One thing to keep in mind. Ohio does not require Columbus to give any credit at all. That choice sits with the city, and cities revisit it. A vote in Columbus could change what this commute to Madison Township costs you, with no change in the law itself.
- Watch for one more local tax. School district income tax is separate from what Columbus and Madison Township charge, and plenty of Ohio districts levy it. Working elsewhere makes no difference to it, and no credit offsets it.
- Do not read this as your whole tax bill. It is the part that answers to the commute between Columbus and Madison Township. State and federal tax carry on regardless, unchanged by which side of a city line your desk is on.
- The dollar figures rest on one assumed salary, sixty thousand. Double your pay and they double. Halve it and they halve. What stays put is the relationship between what Madison Township charges and what Columbus gives back, which is the part worth carrying away.
- 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. Madison Township taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Columbus taxes its residents on everything, and Columbus then credits some, all or none of what Madison 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 Madison 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 Madison 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 Madison 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 Madison 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?
Two claims, one partly canceled. Madison Township takes about 1% because you work there, Columbus charges about 2.5% because you live there, and the home city credits some of the first against the second.
Does working in a different town cost me anything?
On this route, nothing. You owe exactly what you would have owed working at home — the boundary is real on a map and invisible on your pay stub, which is not true of every pair of towns here.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
662 people travel it. Volume decides whether a route gets published at all, never what the tax on it is.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Madison Township on the basis of work location at about 1%, 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 measurement basis for a route of this size?
Route volume is 662 workers per Census LODES, above the publication floor but below the dataset's upper quartile. Liability is determined by jurisdictional rates and residence rules alone; commuter volume has no bearing on it and is reported only as context.