Lorain to Avon Lake
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Lorain ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
1.5%
Avon Lake, on income earned there
Home city charges
2.5%
Lorain, residents
Credit back
$900
a share of the work tax
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
no extra local taxLorain credits only part of what Avon Lake takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Lorain 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
- Some Ohio commutes cost you real money. This one does not. Lorain gives full credit for the tax Avon Lake takes out of your pay, so the two settle down to the same bill you would owe at home. On sixty thousand that is $1,500 for the year. The commute shifts money between city halls and leaves your total alone.
- There is room here, and it is measurable. Avon Lake could take another $600 a year from you before Lorain's credit ran out. Until then the two cities settle it between themselves and you pay what you would have paid at home.
- No other commute into Avon Lake is big enough to appear here, so there is nothing to rank this one against. The route from Lorain carries around 954 workers. Smaller streams get folded away by the counting rules rather than by the map.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Avon Lake withholds about 1.5% on income earned there, and Lorain, 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 Avon Lake and Lorain, not the sum leaving the worker's pay.
- The margin is worth knowing, because it is not large. Lorain credits tax paid to Avon Lake only up to a ceiling set as a share of income, and Avon Lake's levy currently sits below it with $600 of annual room to spare at the reference salary. Were Avon Lake 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.
- Within this dataset Avon Lake draws a single recorded commuting flow of qualifying size — the one from Lorain, carrying roughly 954 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
| Avon Lake takes, on income earned there | $900 |
|---|---|
| Lorain charges residents | $1,500 |
| Less the credit Lorain gives back | $900 |
| Total local tax | $1,500 |
| If you also lived in Avon Lake | $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
- Two guesses about this are wrong, and they miss in opposite directions. The rates are not added together. Nor do you simply pay whichever is higher, which is how it works across the border in Pennsylvania. Avon Lake taxes what you earn there, Lorain taxes everything you earn, and then Lorain decides how much of the first bill to give back.
- One thing to keep in mind. Ohio does not require Lorain to give any credit at all. That choice sits with the city, and cities revisit it. A vote in Lorain could change what this commute to Avon Lake 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 Avon Lake, and the credit from Lorain does not touch it. If your district charges one, add it to everything here.
- Do not read this as your whole tax bill. It is the part that answers to the commute between Lorain and Avon Lake. 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 Lorain. The percentages are the durable part of this page, and they do not shift with what you earn in Avon Lake.
- 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. Avon Lake taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Lorain taxes its residents on everything, and Lorain then credits some, all or none of what Avon Lake collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Lorain rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Lorain's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Lorain 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 Lorain can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Avon Lake 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 Avon Lake, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Lorain 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 Lorain and Avon Lake, 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 Lorain to Avon Lake 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?
You are taxed by both, then given credit for one. Working in Avon Lake costs about 1.5%; living in Lorain costs about 2.5%, reduced by whatever share of the work tax the home city recognizes.
Does working in a different town cost me anything?
Not a cent on this one. The crossing changes where the money is sent, not how much of it leaves, so your total matches a stay-at-home commute.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
954 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: Avon Lake on the basis of work location at about 1.5%, Lorain 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 954 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.