Lancaster to Greenfield Township
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Lancaster ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
1.63%
Greenfield Township, on income earned there
Home city charges
2.3%
Lancaster, residents
Credit back
$600
capped by the ceiling
Cost of the commute
$375
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
ceiling bindsLancaster'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 Lancaster 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. Lancaster hands back $600 of what Greenfield Township took and then stops, because its own rules cap the credit at about 1% of income. You make up the difference yourself. Over a year that difference is $375 you would not owe if you worked where you live.
- No other commute into Greenfield Township is big enough to appear here, so there is nothing to rank this one against. The route from Lancaster carries around 500 workers. Smaller streams get folded away by the counting rules rather than by the map.
- The credit here is real but bounded. Lancaster allows residents about 100% of tax paid to another municipality, subject to a ceiling of about 1% of income, and on this pairing it is the ceiling rather than the share that binds. Greenfield Township withholds $975 at about 1.63%; Lancaster returns $600 of that and collects the remainder of its own about 2.3% resident levy. The workplace accordingly costs $375 above the home-only position, against a total of $1,755.
- Within this dataset Greenfield Township draws a single recorded commuting flow of qualifying size — the one from Lancaster, carrying roughly 500 workers. That reflects the reporting floor rather than the labor market: smaller flows certainly exist and fall below the threshold at which Census origin-destination statistics are published. No ranking against sibling routes is therefore available for this workplace.
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
| Greenfield Township takes, on income earned there | $975 |
|---|---|
| Lancaster charges residents | $1,380 |
| Less the credit Lancaster gives back | $600 |
| Total local tax | $1,755 |
| If you also lived in Greenfield Township | $1,380 |
| Difference | $375 |
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 Lancaster: it may credit all of what Greenfield Township 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.
- These figures rest on a local rule, not a state one. Lancaster decides how much credit to give for tax already paid to Greenfield Township. It is worth confirming the current position with the city or its collection agency, because this is the part most likely to have changed.
- 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 Lancaster rather than your workplace in Greenfield Township, and it is not credited against anything.
- 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 Lancaster and Greenfield Township. That is exactly why they are left out.
- 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 Greenfield Township charges and what Lancaster 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. Greenfield Township taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Lancaster taxes its residents on everything, and Lancaster then credits some, all or none of what Greenfield Township collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Lancaster rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Lancaster's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Lancaster 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 Lancaster can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Greenfield Township 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 Greenfield Township, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Lancaster 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 Lancaster and Greenfield Township, 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 Lancaster to Greenfield Township 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?
Both places charge you, but the city you live in gives back some of what the other one took. Greenfield Township taxes you for working there at about 1.63%; Lancaster then charges its own about 2.3% and credits part of the first against it. Whether anything is left over depends on how generous that credit is.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
About $375 a year. That is the gap between this commute and an identical job in Lancaster, and it exists purely because the boundary sits between them.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
500 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: Greenfield Township on the basis of work location at about 1.63%, Lancaster on residence at about 2.3%. 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 $375 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 500 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.