Orrville to Wooster
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Orrville ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
1.5%
Wooster, on income earned there
Home city charges
1%
Orrville, residents
Credit back
$600
capped by the ceiling
Cost of the commute
$300
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
ceiling bindsOrrville'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 Orrville 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
- Orrville does credit you for the tax Wooster takes. It just stops early. The credit cannot pass about 1% of your income, and Wooster 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 $900.
- This is the only route into Wooster large enough to show up in the data. About 636 people travel it from Orrville. Other people commute there too. Their numbers are simply too small to be counted separately.
- The credit here is real but bounded. Orrville 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. Wooster withholds $900 at about 1.5%; Orrville returns $600 of that and collects the remainder of its own about 1% resident levy. The workplace accordingly costs $300 above the home-only position, against a total of $900.
- Within this dataset Wooster draws a single recorded commuting flow of qualifying size — the one from Orrville, carrying roughly 636 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
| Wooster takes, on income earned there | $900 |
|---|---|
| Orrville charges residents | $600 |
| Less the credit Orrville gives back | $600 |
| Total local tax | $900 |
| If you also lived in Wooster | $600 |
| 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
- 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. Wooster taxes what you earn there, Orrville taxes everything you earn, and then Orrville decides how much of the first bill to give back.
- The credit rule on this page belongs to Orrville, not to the state. Its council sets it and its council can change it. Nothing needs to happen in Wooster or at the state level for these numbers to move. Check the current rule before you rely on it.
- 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 Wooster, and the credit from Orrville 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 Orrville and Wooster. State and federal tax carry on regardless, unchanged by which side of a city line your desk is on.
- Every dollar amount here uses a salary of sixty thousand a year. It is a benchmark, not a guess at what people in Orrville 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 Wooster 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. Wooster taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Orrville taxes its residents on everything, and Orrville then credits some, all or none of what Wooster collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Orrville rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Orrville's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Orrville 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 Orrville can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Wooster 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 Wooster, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Orrville 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 Orrville and Wooster, 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 Orrville to Wooster 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. Wooster takes about 1.5% because you work there, Orrville charges about 1% 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?
636 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: Wooster on the basis of work location at about 1.5%, Orrville on residence at about 1%. 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 636 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.