Cuyahoga Falls to Stow
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Cuyahoga Falls ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2%
Stow, on income earned there
Home city charges
2%
Cuyahoga Falls, 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 taxCuyahoga Falls credits only part of what Stow takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Cuyahoga Falls 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
- Some Ohio commutes cost you real money. This one does not. Cuyahoga Falls gives full credit for the tax Stow takes out of your pay, so the two settle down to the same bill you would owe at home. On sixty thousand that is $1,200 for the year. The commute shifts money between city halls and leaves your total alone.
- The numbers meet exactly here. Stow takes the most that Cuyahoga Falls will hand back, down to the cent. You pay no more than you would living and working at home, but there is no cushion left in it at all.
- This route from Cuyahoga Falls is 2 of 2 recorded commutes into Stow, with around 988 people on it. Treat the ranking loosely. Only flows above a certain size are published at all.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Stow withholds about 2% on income earned there, and Cuyahoga Falls, which levies about 2% on residents, credits that payment in full without reaching its own ceiling. Liability at the reference salary is therefore $1,200 — precisely what the same earnings would attract with no commute at all. What the arrangement alters is the division of revenue between Stow and Cuyahoga Falls, not the sum leaving the worker's pay.
- This pairing sits exactly on its limit. Stow's rate and the ceiling Cuyahoga Falls places on its credit coincide to the cent, so the credit absorbs the work-city tax precisely and not a dollar further. The commute is costless today and has no margin whatsoever: any increase by Stow, or any reduction in the ceiling by Cuyahoga Falls, falls directly on the worker from the first dollar.
- Stow records 2 qualifying commuting origins in this dataset, of which Cuyahoga Falls ranks 2 by worker count at approximately 988. A workplace of this size draws from a small enough set of origins that the comparison is indicative rather than statistical, and the published floor excludes an unknown tail of smaller flows.
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
| Stow takes, on income earned there | $1,200 |
|---|---|
| Cuyahoga Falls charges residents | $1,200 |
| Less the credit Cuyahoga Falls gives back | $1,200 |
| Total local tax | $1,200 |
| If you also lived in Stow | $1,200 |
| 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 Stow and Cuyahoga Falls charge you. Cuyahoga Falls may then hand back what Stow took, or part of it, or none of it. Everything on this page turns on which of those it does.
- The credit rule on this page belongs to Cuyahoga Falls, not to the state. Its council sets it and its council can change it. Nothing needs to happen in Stow or at the state level for these numbers to move. Check the current rule before you rely on it.
- 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 Stow, and the credit from Cuyahoga Falls does not touch it. If your district charges one, add it to everything here.
- Do not read this as your whole tax bill. It is the part that answers to the commute between Cuyahoga Falls and Stow. State and federal tax carry on regardless, unchanged by which side of a city line your desk is on.
- Sixty thousand a year is the assumption behind the dollars. It is stated rather than measured. No wage figure exists for a place the size of Cuyahoga Falls. The percentages are the durable part of this page, and they do not shift with what you earn in Stow.
- 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. Stow taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Cuyahoga Falls taxes its residents on everything, and Cuyahoga Falls then credits some, all or none of what Stow collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Cuyahoga Falls rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Cuyahoga Falls's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Cuyahoga Falls 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 Cuyahoga Falls can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Stow 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 Stow, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Cuyahoga Falls 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 Cuyahoga Falls and Stow, 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 Cuyahoga Falls to Stow 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?
Both places charge you, but the city you live in gives back some of what the other one took. Stow taxes you for working there at about 2%; Cuyahoga Falls then charges its own about 2% and credits part of the first against it. Whether anything is left over depends on how generous that credit is.
Does working in a different town cost me anything?
Nothing extra. The tax is redirected rather than increased, so this particular crossing costs you no more than working in Cuyahoga Falls would.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
988 workers make this journey — enough to be published, but not a major corridor. The tax rules do not depend on how many people travel a route, so the figures hold regardless; the count only tells you how typical this pairing is.
Both towns charge the same — does the boundary matter at all then?
The rates match at about 2%, so the crossing moves money between authorities rather than out of your pocket.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Stow on the basis of work location at about 2%, Cuyahoga Falls on residence at about 2%. 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 988 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.
What is the effect of identical rates either side of the boundary?
Both jurisdictions levy about 2%, so the governing rate is identical regardless of which rule allocates it. The boundary affects revenue attribution between authorities, not employee liability.