Elyria to Avon

Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Elyria ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
1.95%
Avon, on income earned there
Home city charges
2.25%
Elyria, residents
Credit back
$1,170
a share of the work tax
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
no extra local taxElyria credits only part of what Avon takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Elyria 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 Avon costs you nothing extra in local tax. Elyria charges residents about 2.25%, and it credits back every dollar Avon collects from you. Either way your bill is $1,350 a year. What changes is which city keeps the money, not how much of it you hand over.
- This is closer than it looks. Elyria covers what Avon takes, but only up to a limit, and Avon is $180 a year short of it. Raise the work rate past that and the commute stops being free.
- Avon draws workers from 5 places in this data, and Elyria is 2 of them by size, with about 1,071 people. It is a short list. Smaller routes into the city exist below the counting threshold.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Avon withholds about 1.95% on income earned there, and Elyria, which levies about 2.25% on residents, credits that payment in full without reaching its own ceiling. Liability at the reference salary is therefore $1,350 — precisely what the same earnings would attract with no commute at all. What the arrangement alters is the division of revenue between Avon and Elyria, not the sum leaving the worker's pay.
- The margin is worth knowing, because it is not large. Elyria credits tax paid to Avon only up to a ceiling set as a share of income, and Avon's levy currently sits below it with $180 of annual room to spare at the reference salary. Were Avon 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.
- Avon records 5 qualifying commuting origins in this dataset, of which Elyria ranks 2 by worker count at approximately 1,071. 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
| Avon takes, on income earned there | $1,170 |
|---|---|
| Elyria charges residents | $1,350 |
| Less the credit Elyria gives back | $1,170 |
| Total local tax | $1,350 |
| If you also lived in Avon | $1,350 |
| 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 Elyria: it may credit all of what Avon 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.
- The credit rule on this page belongs to Elyria, not to the state. Its council sets it and its council can change it. Nothing needs to happen in Avon 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 Avon, and the credit from Elyria does not touch it. If your district charges one, add it to everything here.
- These figures are the local layer alone. Whatever Elyria and Avon 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.
- Every dollar amount here uses a salary of sixty thousand a year. It is a benchmark, not a guess at what people in Elyria 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 Avon 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. Avon taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Elyria taxes its residents on everything, and Elyria then credits some, all or none of what Avon collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Elyria rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Elyria's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Elyria 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 Elyria can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Avon 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 Avon, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Elyria 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 Elyria and Avon, 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 Elyria to Avon 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 Avon costs about 1.95%; living in Elyria costs about 2.25%, 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 — 1,071 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: Avon on the basis of work location at about 1.95%, Elyria on residence at about 2.25%. 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 1,071 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.