Lima to Perry Township
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Lima ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2%
Perry Township, on income earned there
Home city charges
1.5%
Lima, residents
Credit back
$900
capped by the ceiling
Cost of the commute
$300
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
ceiling bindsLima'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 Lima 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
- Lima does credit you for the tax Perry Township takes. It just stops early. The credit cannot pass about 1.5% of your income, and Perry Township charges more than that, so it runs out before the bill does. Working there costs $300 a year more than working at home would. All in, local tax is $1,200.
- No route sends more people into Perry Township than this one. About 536 workers come from Lima, putting it top of 2 recorded origins. Whatever the tax rule does here, it does to a lot of households at once.
- The credit here is real but bounded. Lima allows residents about 100% of tax paid to another municipality, subject to a ceiling of about 1.5% of income, and on this pairing it is the ceiling rather than the share that binds. Perry Township withholds $1,200 at about 2%; Lima returns $900 of that and collects the remainder of its own about 1.5% resident levy. The workplace accordingly costs $300 above the home-only position, against a total of $1,200.
- This is the largest recorded flow into Perry Township. Of 2 origins feeding that workplace in this dataset, Lima supplies the most workers at approximately 536. The credit outcome described above therefore applies to more commuters than any other single route into the city, which matters when the outcome is an adverse one: the same ordinance governs every origin, but the populations behind each are very different.
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
| Perry Township takes, on income earned there | $1,200 |
|---|---|
| Lima charges residents | $900 |
| Less the credit Lima gives back | $900 |
| Total local tax | $1,200 |
| If you also lived in Perry Township | $900 |
| Difference | $300 |
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
- Do not add the two rates up, and do not assume the bigger one simply wins. Neither is how Ohio works. Both Perry Township and Lima charge you. Lima may then hand back what Perry Township took, or part of it, or none of it. Everything on this page turns on which of those it does.
- These figures rest on a local rule, not a state one. Lima decides how much credit to give for tax already paid to Perry 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 Lima rather than your workplace in Perry Township, and it is not credited against anything.
- These figures are the local layer alone. Whatever Lima and Perry Township 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 Lima 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 Perry Township 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. Perry Township taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Lima taxes its residents on everything, and Lima then credits some, all or none of what Perry Township collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Lima rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Lima's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Lima 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 Lima can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Perry 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 Perry Township, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Lima 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 Lima and Perry 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 Lima to Perry 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?
Two claims, one partly canceled. Perry Township takes about 2% because you work there, Lima charges about 1.5% because you live there, and the home city credits some of the first against the second.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
$300 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?
536 workers make this journey — enough to be published, but not a major corridor. The tax rules do not depend on how many people travel a route, so the figures hold regardless; the count only tells you how typical this pairing is.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Perry Township on the basis of work location at about 2%, Lima on residence at about 1.5%. 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.
What is the marginal local tax cost of this commute?
Marginal annual liability attributable to working outside the residence jurisdiction is $300 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 536 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.