Reynoldsburg to Gahanna
Ohio municipal income tax, Chapter 718 framework · credit set by Reynoldsburg ordinance · tax year 2026
Work city takes
2.5%
Gahanna, on income earned there
Home city charges
2.5%
Reynoldsburg, residents
Credit back
$1,500
a share of the work tax
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above working at home
What it costs you
no extra local taxReynoldsburg credits only part of what Gahanna takes, so the remainder is taxed twice. Solid is what you pay; the faded part of the Reynoldsburg 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 Gahanna costs you nothing extra in local tax. Reynoldsburg charges residents about 2.5%, and it credits back every dollar Gahanna collects from you. Either way your bill is $1,500 a year. What changes is which city keeps the money, not how much of it you hand over.
- This one is balanced on a knife edge. What Gahanna takes is exactly what Reynoldsburg is willing to credit — no more. It costs you nothing today. It would cost you from the very first dollar if either city moved its rate.
- Gahanna draws workers from 2 places in this data, and Reynoldsburg is 2 of them by size, with about 585 people. It is a short list. Smaller routes into the city exist below the counting threshold.
- This pairing is neutral to the worker. Gahanna withholds about 2.5% on income earned there, and Reynoldsburg, 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 Gahanna and Reynoldsburg, not the sum leaving the worker's pay.
- This pairing sits exactly on its limit. Gahanna's rate and the ceiling Reynoldsburg 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 Gahanna, or any reduction in the ceiling by Reynoldsburg, falls directly on the worker from the first dollar.
- Gahanna records 2 qualifying commuting origins in this dataset, of which Reynoldsburg ranks 2 by worker count at approximately 585. 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
| Gahanna takes, on income earned there | $1,500 |
|---|---|
| Reynoldsburg charges residents | $1,500 |
| Less the credit Reynoldsburg gives back | $1,500 |
| Total local tax | $1,500 |
| If you also lived in Gahanna | $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
- 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 Reynoldsburg: it may credit all of what Gahanna 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.
- These figures rest on a local rule, not a state one. Reynoldsburg decides how much credit to give for tax already paid to Gahanna. It is worth confirming the current position with the city or its collection agency, because this is the part most likely to have changed.
- This page covers city income tax only. Your school district may charge its own on top, and many in Ohio do. That one follows your address in Reynoldsburg rather than your workplace in Gahanna, and it is not credited against anything.
- One tax is on this page and it is the city one. State tax, federal tax and Social Security all still come out of your pay. None of them change when you cross the line between Reynoldsburg and Gahanna. That is exactly why they are left out.
- 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 Reynoldsburg. The percentages are the durable part of this page, and they do not shift with what you earn in Gahanna.
- 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. Gahanna taxes what is earned within its boundaries, Reynoldsburg taxes its residents on everything, and Reynoldsburg then credits some, all or none of what Gahanna collected. The credit is the entire mechanism, and it is set by Reynoldsburg rather than by the state.
- The credit rule modeled here is Reynoldsburg's own, adopted by ordinance and amendable by Reynoldsburg 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 Reynoldsburg can therefore change every figure on this page without anything altering in Gahanna 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 Gahanna, and no municipal credit applies to it. A resident of Reynoldsburg 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 Reynoldsburg and Gahanna, 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 Reynoldsburg to Gahanna 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. Gahanna taxes you for working there at about 2.5%; Reynoldsburg then charges its own about 2.5% 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?
Nothing extra. The tax is redirected rather than increased, so this particular crossing costs you no more than working in Reynoldsburg would.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
It is a smaller route: 585 workers. That affects how representative it is, not whether the tax arithmetic applies — the rules are the same on a quiet road as a busy one.
Both towns charge the same — does the boundary matter at all then?
Not to your total. Reynoldsburg and Gahanna both levy about 2.5%, so the amount is settled either way — what the boundary decides is which authority receives it, and that is an accounting question rather than a cost to you.
How does a resident credit allocate liability between two municipalities?
Both jurisdictions assert a claim: Gahanna on the basis of work location at about 2.5%, Reynoldsburg 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 585 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 2.5%, so the governing rate is identical regardless of which rule allocates it. The boundary affects revenue attribution between authorities, not employee liability.