Kirtland to Cleveland
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Kirtland ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2.5%
Cleveland, on income earned there
Home city charges
2%
Kirtland, residents
Credit back
$1,050
capped by the ceiling
Cost of the commute
$450
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
ceiling bindsKirtland's credit stops at its ceiling, so the rest of its own tax still applies. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Kirtland 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
- A credit with a ceiling is not a full credit. Kirtland hands back $1,050 of what Cleveland took and then stops, because its own rules cap the credit at about 1.75% of income. You make up the difference yourself. Over a year that difference is $450 you would not owe if you worked where you live.
- Plenty of towns feed Cleveland. There are 66 of them in this data, and Kirtland ranks 62 by worker count with roughly 598 making the trip. The size of a route tells you about traffic. It tells you nothing about the tax.
- The credit here is real but bounded. Kirtland allows residents about 100% of tax paid to another municipality, subject to a ceiling of about 1.75% of income, and on this pairing it is the ceiling rather than the share that binds. Cleveland withholds $1,500 at about 2.5%; Kirtland returns $1,050 of that and collects the remainder of its own about 2% resident levy. The workplace accordingly costs $450 above the home-only position, against a total of $1,650.
- Cleveland is a major regional workplace, drawing recorded flows from 66 separate origins in this dataset. The route from Kirtland ranks 62 among them by worker count, at roughly 598. Rank is not a proxy for tax outcome: every origin faces the same Cleveland rate, and what differs between them is the home municipality's credit, so a smaller route can carry a considerably worse result than a larger one.
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
| Cleveland takes, on income earned there | $1,500 |
|---|---|
| Kirtland charges residents | $1,200 |
| Less the credit Kirtland gives back | $1,050 |
| Total local tax | $1,650 |
| If you also lived in Cleveland | $1,200 |
| Difference | $450 |
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 Kirtland: it may credit all of what Cleveland 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 Kirtland to give any credit at all. That choice sits with the city, and cities revisit it. A vote in Kirtland could change what this commute to Cleveland costs you, with no change in the law itself.
- 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 Cleveland, and the credit from Kirtland does not touch it. If your district charges one, add it to everything here.
- 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 Kirtland and Cleveland. 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 Kirtland. The percentages are the durable part of this page, and they do not shift with what you earn in Cleveland.
- 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. Cleveland taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Kirtland taxes its residents on everything, and Kirtland then credits some, all or none of what Cleveland collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Kirtland rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Kirtland's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Kirtland 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 Kirtland can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Cleveland 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 Cleveland, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Kirtland 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 Kirtland and Cleveland, 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 Kirtland to Cleveland 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. Cleveland takes about 2.5% because you work there, Kirtland charges about 2% because you live there, and the home city credits some of the first against the second.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
$450 a year more than if you worked where you live. It is not a commuting charge and it buys you nothing — it is what falls out of two jurisdictions both having a claim and only one of them yielding.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
598 people travel it. Volume decides whether a route gets published at all, never what the tax on it is.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Cleveland on the basis of work location at about 2.5%, Kirtland 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.
What is the marginal local tax cost of this commute?
Marginal annual liability attributable to working outside the residence jurisdiction is $450 at the reference salary. This is a tax cost rather than a commuting expense and is not deductible as one. It scales with income and with the rate differential, not with distance traveled.
What is the measurement basis for a route of this size?
Route volume is 598 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.