Gahanna to New Albany
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Gahanna ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2%
New Albany, on income earned there
Home city charges
2.5%
Gahanna, 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 taxGahanna credits only part of what New Albany takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Gahanna 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. Gahanna credits everything New Albany 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. Gahanna covers what New Albany takes, but only up to a limit, and New Albany is $300 a year short of it. Raise the work rate past that and the commute stops being free.
- This data records 4 commutes into New Albany, and the one from Gahanna ranks 4, carrying roughly 502 workers. That is a handful of routes rather than a full map of who works there.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. New Albany withholds about 2% on income earned there, and Gahanna, 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 New Albany and Gahanna, not the sum leaving the worker's pay.
- The margin is worth knowing, because it is not large. Gahanna credits tax paid to New Albany only up to a ceiling set as a share of income, and New Albany's levy currently sits below it with $300 of annual room to spare at the reference salary. Were New Albany 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.
- New Albany records 4 qualifying commuting origins in this dataset, of which Gahanna ranks 4 by worker count at approximately 502. 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
| New Albany takes, on income earned there | $1,200 |
|---|---|
| Gahanna charges residents | $1,500 |
| Less the credit Gahanna gives back | $1,200 |
| Total local tax | $1,500 |
| If you also lived in New Albany | $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 Gahanna: it may credit all of what New Albany 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 Gahanna, not to the state. Its council sets it and its council can change it. Nothing needs to happen in New Albany or at the state level for these numbers to move. Check the current rule before you rely on it.
- This page covers city income tax only. Your school district may charge its own on top, and many in Ohio do. That one follows your address in Gahanna rather than your workplace in New Albany, and it is not credited against anything.
- Do not read this as your whole tax bill. It is the part that answers to the commute between Gahanna and New Albany. 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 Gahanna. The percentages are the durable part of this page, and they do not shift with what you earn in New Albany.
- 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. New Albany taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Gahanna taxes its residents on everything, and Gahanna then credits some, all or none of what New Albany collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Gahanna rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Gahanna's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Gahanna 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 Gahanna can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in New Albany 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 New Albany, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Gahanna 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 Gahanna and New Albany, 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 Gahanna to New Albany 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. New Albany takes about 2% because you work there, Gahanna 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?
It is a smaller route: 502 workers. That affects how representative it is, not whether the tax arithmetic applies — the rules are the same on a quiet road as a busy one.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: New Albany on the basis of work location at about 2%, Gahanna 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 502 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.