Louisville to Canton
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Louisville ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2.5%
Canton, on income earned there
Home city charges
2%
Louisville, residents
Credit back
$720
capped by the ceiling
Cost of the commute
$780
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
ceiling bindsLouisville'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 Louisville 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
- Louisville does credit you for the tax Canton takes. It just stops early. The credit cannot pass about 1.2% of your income, and Canton charges more than that, so it runs out before the bill does. Working there costs $780 a year more than working at home would. All in, local tax is $1,980.
- Canton draws workers from 7 places in this data, and Louisville is 7 of them by size, with about 760 people. It is a short list. Smaller routes into the city exist below the counting threshold.
- The credit here is real but bounded. Louisville allows residents about 60% of tax paid to another municipality, subject to a ceiling of about 1.2% of income, and on this pairing it is the ceiling rather than the share that binds. Canton withholds $1,500 at about 2.5%; Louisville returns $720 of that and collects the remainder of its own about 2% resident levy. The workplace accordingly costs $780 above the home-only position, against a total of $1,980.
- Canton records 7 qualifying commuting origins in this dataset, of which Louisville ranks 7 by worker count at approximately 760. 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
| Canton takes, on income earned there | $1,500 |
|---|---|
| Louisville charges residents | $1,200 |
| Less the credit Louisville gives back | $720 |
| Total local tax | $1,980 |
| If you also lived in Canton | $1,200 |
| Difference | $780 |
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 Louisville: it may credit all of what Canton 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 Louisville to give any credit at all. That choice sits with the city, and cities revisit it. A vote in Louisville could change what this commute to Canton 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 Canton, and the credit from Louisville does not touch it. If your district charges one, add it to everything here.
- These figures are the local layer alone. Whatever Louisville and Canton 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 Louisville 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 Canton 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. Canton taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Louisville taxes its residents on everything, and Louisville then credits some, all or none of what Canton collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Louisville rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Louisville's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Louisville 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 Louisville can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Canton 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 Canton, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Louisville 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 Louisville and Canton, 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 Louisville to Canton 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. Canton taxes you for working there at about 2.5%; Louisville then charges its own about 2% 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?
$780 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.
Why does my home town not credit the whole of what the other one took?
Full credit would mean Louisville collecting nothing from anyone who works out of town. Councils rarely do that, and the shortfall is what a commuter pays.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
760 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: Canton on the basis of work location at about 2.5%, Louisville 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 $780 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.
Why is the residence credit less than the full work-district tax?
Credit rates and ceilings are set by the residence municipality, not by state law. A full credit would forgo residence-based revenue from every outbound commuter, so credits are commonly partial or capped as a share of income. The uncredited remainder is the commuter's marginal cost.
What is the measurement basis for a route of this size?
Route volume is 760 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.