Powell to Dublin
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Powell ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2%
Dublin, on income earned there
Home city charges
2%
Powell, residents
Credit back
$1,200
a share of the work tax
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
no extra local taxPowell credits only part of what Dublin takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Powell 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
- Here is the good news. Working in Dublin costs you nothing extra in local tax. Powell charges residents about 2%, and it credits back every dollar Dublin collects from you. Either way your bill is $1,200 a year. What changes is which city keeps the money, not how much of it you hand over.
- Nothing to pay, and nothing to spare. Powell's credit stops precisely where Dublin's tax stops. The two cancel exactly, which is a comfortable place to be and a fragile one.
- This data records 9 commutes into Dublin, and the one from Powell ranks 9, carrying roughly 548 workers. That is a handful of routes rather than a full map of who works there.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Dublin withholds about 2% on income earned there, and Powell, which levies about 2% on residents, credits that payment in full without reaching its own ceiling. Liability at the reference salary is therefore $1,200 — precisely what the same earnings would attract with no commute at all. What the arrangement alters is the division of revenue between Dublin and Powell, not the sum leaving the worker's pay.
- This pairing sits exactly on its limit. Dublin's rate and the ceiling Powell places on its credit coincide to the cent, so the credit absorbs the work-city tax precisely and not a dollar further. The commute is costless today and has no margin whatsoever: any increase by Dublin, or any reduction in the ceiling by Powell, falls directly on the worker from the first dollar.
- Dublin records 9 qualifying commuting origins in this dataset, of which Powell ranks 9 by worker count at approximately 548. 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
| Dublin takes, on income earned there | $1,200 |
|---|---|
| Powell charges residents | $1,200 |
| Less the credit Powell gives back | $1,200 |
| Total local tax | $1,200 |
| If you also lived in Dublin | $1,200 |
| 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
- Do not add the two rates up, and do not assume the bigger one simply wins. Neither is how Ohio works. Both Dublin and Powell charge you. Powell may then hand back what Dublin 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 Powell to give any credit at all. That choice sits with the city, and cities revisit it. A vote in Powell could change what this commute to Dublin 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 Dublin, and the credit from Powell does not touch it. If your district charges one, add it to everything here.
- These figures are the local layer alone. Whatever Powell and Dublin 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.
- The dollar figures rest on one assumed salary, sixty thousand. Double your pay and they double. Halve it and they halve. What stays put is the relationship between what Dublin charges and what Powell gives back, which is the part worth carrying away.
- 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. Dublin taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Powell taxes its residents on everything, and Powell then credits some, all or none of what Dublin collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Powell rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Powell's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Powell 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 Powell can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Dublin 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 Dublin, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Powell 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 Powell and Dublin, 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 Powell to Dublin 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. Dublin taxes you for working there at about 2%; Powell 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.
Does working in a different town cost me anything?
On this route, nothing. You owe exactly what you would have owed working at home — the boundary is real on a map and invisible on your pay stub, which is not true of every pair of towns here.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
548 people travel it. Volume decides whether a route gets published at all, never what the tax on it is.
Both towns charge the same — does the boundary matter at all then?
The rates match at about 2%, so the crossing moves money between authorities rather than out of your pocket.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Dublin on the basis of work location at about 2%, Powell 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.
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 548 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.
What is the effect of identical rates either side of the boundary?
Both jurisdictions levy about 2%, so the governing rate is identical regardless of which rule allocates it. The boundary affects revenue attribution between authorities, not employee liability.