Dayton to Moraine
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Dayton ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2.5%
Moraine, on income earned there
Home city charges
2.5%
Dayton, residents
Credit back
$1,500
a share of the work tax
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
no extra local taxDayton credits only part of what Moraine takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Dayton 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. Dayton gives full credit for the tax Moraine takes out of your pay, so the two settle down to the same bill you would owe at home. On sixty thousand that is $1,500 for the year. The commute shifts money between city halls and leaves your total alone.
- The numbers meet exactly here. Moraine takes the most that Dayton 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.
- No route sends more people into Moraine than this one. About 1,854 workers come from Dayton, putting it top of 2 recorded origins. Whatever the tax rule does here, it does to a lot of households at once.
- This is a well-traveled road. About 1,854 people go from Dayton to work in Moraine. That is a lot of households meeting the same rule at the same time.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Moraine withholds about 2.5% on income earned there, and Dayton, 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 Moraine and Dayton, not the sum leaving the worker's pay.
- This pairing sits exactly on its limit. Moraine's rate and the ceiling Dayton 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 Moraine, or any reduction in the ceiling by Dayton, falls directly on the worker from the first dollar.
- This is the largest recorded flow into Moraine. Of 2 origins feeding that workplace in this dataset, Dayton supplies the most workers at approximately 1,854. The credit outcome described above therefore applies to more commuters than any other single route into the city, which matters when the outcome is an adverse one: the same ordinance governs every origin, but the populations behind each are very different.
- Census origin-destination statistics record approximately 1,854 workers commuting from Dayton to Moraine, placing this among the larger intra-state flows in Ohio. The outcome set out above therefore has aggregate fiscal consequence for both municipalities, not merely individual consequence for the worker: the credit Dayton does or does not extend is applied to every one of them at once.
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
| Moraine takes, on income earned there | $1,500 |
|---|---|
| Dayton charges residents | $1,500 |
| Less the credit Dayton gives back | $1,500 |
| Total local tax | $1,500 |
| If you also lived in Moraine | $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
- Here is the shape of it, because the arithmetic is easy to get wrong. You are taxed by both cities. What happens next is up to Dayton: it may credit all of what Moraine took, some of it, or none at all. That choice belongs to the city rather than to the state, which is why identical salaries in neighboring towns land so differently.
- One thing to keep in mind. Ohio does not require Dayton to give any credit at all. That choice sits with the city, and cities revisit it. A vote in Dayton could change what this commute to Moraine costs you, with no change in the law itself.
- Watch for one more local tax. School district income tax is separate from what Dayton and Moraine 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 Dayton and Moraine. That is exactly why they are left out.
- 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 Dayton. The percentages are the durable part of this page, and they do not shift with what you earn in Moraine.
- 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. Moraine taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Dayton taxes its residents on everything, and Dayton then credits some, all or none of what Moraine collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Dayton rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Dayton's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Dayton 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 Dayton can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Moraine 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 Moraine, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Dayton 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 Dayton and Moraine, 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 Dayton to Moraine 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 Moraine costs about 2.5%; living in Dayton 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?
It is. 1,854 workers travel this pair, per the federal origin-destination survey; smaller routes fall below the publication floor and get no page.
Both towns charge the same — does the boundary matter at all then?
Not to your total. Dayton and Moraine both levy about 2.5%, so the amount is settled either way — what the boundary decides is which authority receives it, and that is an accounting question rather than a cost to you.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Moraine on the basis of work location at about 2.5%, Dayton 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 1,854 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.
What is the effect of identical rates either side of the boundary?
Both jurisdictions levy about 2.5%, so the governing rate is identical regardless of which rule allocates it. The boundary affects revenue attribution between authorities, not employee liability.