Lyndhurst to Cleveland
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Lyndhurst ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2.5%
Cleveland, on income earned there
Home city charges
2%
Lyndhurst, residents
Credit back
$750
a share of the work tax
Cost of the commute
$750
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
partial creditLyndhurst credits only part of what Cleveland takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Lyndhurst 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
- Lyndhurst gives back some of what Cleveland takes, but not all of it. The credit covers about 50% of the work city's tax and no more. Whatever is left over, you pay twice. That comes to $750 a year beyond what living and working in Lyndhurst would have cost.
- Plenty of towns feed Cleveland. There are 66 of them in this data, and Lyndhurst ranks 29 by worker count with roughly 2,094 making the trip. The size of a route tells you about traffic. It tells you nothing about the tax.
- This is a well-traveled road. About 2,094 people go from Lyndhurst to work in Cleveland. That is a lot of households meeting the same rule at the same time.
- Lyndhurst credits only part of what its residents pay elsewhere. Its ordinance allows about 50% of tax paid to another municipality, and on this pairing that share, rather than the income ceiling, is what limits the relief. Against $1,500 withheld by Cleveland, the credit returns $750, leaving Lyndhurst to collect the balance of its about 2% resident levy. The workplace accounts for $750; the year's local total is $1,950.
- Cleveland is a major regional workplace, drawing recorded flows from 66 separate origins in this dataset. The route from Lyndhurst ranks 29 among them by worker count, at roughly 2,094. 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.
- Census origin-destination statistics record approximately 2,094 workers commuting from Lyndhurst to Cleveland, placing this among the larger intra-state flows in Ohio. The outcome set out above therefore has aggregate fiscal consequence for both municipalities, not merely individual consequence for the worker: the credit Lyndhurst does or does not extend is applied to every one of them at once.
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 |
|---|---|
| Lyndhurst charges residents | $1,200 |
| Less the credit Lyndhurst gives back | $750 |
| Total local tax | $1,950 |
| If you also lived in Cleveland | $1,200 |
| Difference | $750 |
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 Cleveland and Lyndhurst charge you. Lyndhurst may then hand back what Cleveland took, or part of it, or none of it. Everything on this page turns on which of those it does.
- One thing to keep in mind. Ohio does not require Lyndhurst to give any credit at all. That choice sits with the city, and cities revisit it. A vote in Lyndhurst 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 Lyndhurst does not touch it. If your district charges one, add it to everything here.
- These figures are the local layer alone. Whatever Lyndhurst and Cleveland 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.
- 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 Lyndhurst. 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, Lyndhurst taxes its residents on everything, and Lyndhurst then credits some, all or none of what Cleveland collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Lyndhurst rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Lyndhurst's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Lyndhurst 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 Lyndhurst 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 Lyndhurst 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 Lyndhurst 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 Lyndhurst 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, Lyndhurst 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?
About $750 a year. That is the gap between this commute and an identical job in Lyndhurst, and it exists purely because the boundary sits between them.
Why does my home town not credit the whole of what the other one took?
Because the credit is set locally, and Lyndhurst chose not to make it whole. A city that credits everything gives up revenue from every resident who works elsewhere, so most cap it — which is exactly where a commuter's extra cost comes from.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
It is. 2,094 workers travel this pair, per the federal origin-destination survey; smaller routes fall below the publication floor and get no page.
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%, Lyndhurst 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 $750 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 basis for including this route?
Route volume is 2,094 workers, sourced from Census LODES origin-destination data. Pairs below the publication threshold are excluded rather than imputed, so page existence reflects measured commuting volume.