Columbus to Urbancrest Village

Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Columbus ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2%
Urbancrest Village, on income earned there
Home city charges
2.5%
Columbus, residents
Credit back
$1,200
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 Urbancrest Village 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
- You can stop worrying about this one. Columbus credits everything Urbancrest Village withholds, right up to its own rate of about 2.5%. Crossing the line to work adds nothing. Local income tax comes to $1,500 for the year, exactly as it would if the job were on your own street.
- This is closer than it looks. Columbus covers what Urbancrest Village takes, but only up to a limit, and Urbancrest Village is $300 a year short of it. Raise the work rate past that and the commute stops being free.
- This is the only route into Urbancrest Village large enough to show up in the data. About 672 people travel it from Columbus. Other people commute there too. Their numbers are simply too small to be counted separately.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Urbancrest Village withholds about 2% 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 Urbancrest Village 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 Urbancrest Village only up to a ceiling set as a share of income, and Urbancrest Village's levy currently sits below it with $300 of annual room to spare at the reference salary. Were Urbancrest Village 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 Urbancrest Village draws a single recorded commuting flow of qualifying size — the one from Columbus, carrying roughly 672 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
| Urbancrest Village takes, on income earned there | $1,200 |
|---|---|
| Columbus charges residents | $1,500 |
| Less the credit Columbus gives back | $1,200 |
| Total local tax | $1,500 |
| If you also lived in Urbancrest Village | $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. Urbancrest Village taxes what you earn there, Columbus taxes everything you earn, and then Columbus decides how much of the first bill to give back.
- 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 Urbancrest Village costs you, with no change in the law itself.
- Ohio has a second local tax that is not on this page. Some school districts levy their own income tax. It depends on where you live, not on your job in Urbancrest Village, and the credit from Columbus does not touch it. If your district charges one, add it to everything here.
- These figures are the local layer alone. Whatever Columbus and Urbancrest Village take sits on top of state, federal and payroll tax. Those three are the same wherever in Ohio you work, so putting them in would bury the difference this page is about.
- 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 Urbancrest Village 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. Urbancrest Village taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Columbus taxes its residents on everything, and Columbus then credits some, all or none of what Urbancrest Village 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 Urbancrest Village 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 Urbancrest Village, 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 Urbancrest Village, 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 Urbancrest Village 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 Urbancrest Village costs about 2%; 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 commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
672 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: Urbancrest Village on the basis of work location at about 2%, 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 672 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.