Garfield Heights to Solon
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Garfield Heights ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2%
Solon, on income earned there
Home city charges
2%
Garfield Heights, 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 taxGarfield Heights credits only part of what Solon takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Garfield Heights 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. Garfield Heights credits everything Solon withholds, right up to its own rate of about 2%. Crossing the line to work adds nothing. Local income tax comes to $1,200 for the year, exactly as it would if the job were on your own street.
- This one is balanced on a knife edge. What Solon takes is exactly what Garfield Heights is willing to credit — no more. It costs you nothing today. It would cost you from the very first dollar if either city moved its rate.
- This route from Garfield Heights is 5 of 5 recorded commutes into Solon, with around 557 people on it. Treat the ranking loosely. Only flows above a certain size are published at all.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Solon withholds about 2% on income earned there, and Garfield Heights, 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 Solon and Garfield Heights, not the sum leaving the worker's pay.
- This pairing sits exactly on its limit. Solon's rate and the ceiling Garfield Heights 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 Solon, or any reduction in the ceiling by Garfield Heights, falls directly on the worker from the first dollar.
- Solon records 5 qualifying commuting origins in this dataset, of which Garfield Heights ranks 5 by worker count at approximately 557. 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
| Solon takes, on income earned there | $1,200 |
|---|---|
| Garfield Heights charges residents | $1,200 |
| Less the credit Garfield Heights gives back | $1,200 |
| Total local tax | $1,200 |
| If you also lived in Solon | $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
- 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 Garfield Heights: it may credit all of what Solon 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 Garfield Heights, not to the state. Its council sets it and its council can change it. Nothing needs to happen in Solon 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 Garfield Heights rather than your workplace in Solon, 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 Garfield Heights and Solon. State and federal tax carry on regardless, unchanged by which side of a city line your desk is on.
- 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 Solon charges and what Garfield Heights 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. Solon taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Garfield Heights taxes its residents on everything, and Garfield Heights then credits some, all or none of what Solon collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Garfield Heights rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Garfield Heights's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Garfield Heights 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 Garfield Heights can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Solon 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 Solon, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Garfield Heights 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 Garfield Heights and Solon, 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 Garfield Heights to Solon 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. Solon takes about 2% because you work there, Garfield Heights charges about 2% 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?
557 people travel it. Volume decides whether a route gets published at all, never what the tax on it is.
Both towns charge the same — does the boundary matter at all then?
Not for what you pay. Both sides charge about 2%; the line only determines who banks it.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Solon on the basis of work location at about 2%, Garfield Heights 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 557 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.