Allentown to Lower Macungie Township
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · LEHIGH to LEHIGH County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1.98%
Allentown, residents
Work rate
1%
Lower Macungie Township, non-residents
You pay
1.98%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxAllentown already charges its residents more than Lower Macungie Township charges commuters, so the home rate governs and the job adds nothing at all. You pay the solid bar only — Pennsylvania charges the higher of the two rates, never their sum. Local earned income tax only; state, federal and payroll tax apply on top.
What this commute actually costs
- Nothing changes for this commute. A resident of Allentown pays about 1.98% either way. It makes no difference whether they work at home or travel to Lower Macungie Township. The home rate is the higher of the two, and the higher one wins. That is $1,185 a year.
- From Allentown, this is destination number 6 of 13 tracked. From Lower Macungie Township, there is little to compare with. Few other routes into it are recorded.
- The Allentown to Lower Macungie Township commute is tax-neutral. Allentown's resident rate of about 1.98% is not exceeded by Lower Macungie Township's non-resident rate, so under the state's rule the resident rate applies and the effective figure is about 1.98% — $1,185 annually at the reference salary. Withholding is remitted to the residence in full and the work location receives no share.
- From the origin, Lower Macungie Township is Allentown's 6 destination of 13 recorded. From the destination, recorded inflows are too few to rank origins against one another, which is common for smaller workplaces in this dataset.
Where the money goes
A $75,000 salary
- Federal income tax$7,670
- Social Security and Medicare$5,738
- State income tax$2,303
- Yours$59,290
| Federal income tax10.23% | $7,670 |
|---|---|
| Social Security and Medicare7.65% | $5,738 |
| State income tax3.07% | $2,303 |
| Yours79.05% | $59,290 |
The arithmetic, side by side
| If you worked in Allentown | $1,185 |
|---|---|
| Working in Lower Macungie Township | $1,185 |
| Difference | $0 |
On a reference salary of $60,000 a year. The local tax is flat, so every figure scales with your own pay.
What this page does not cover
- One thing worth being clear about, because it catches people out. You are not charged by both places. Allentown and Lower Macungie Township do not add their rates together. Pennsylvania picks the higher of the two, and that is what you pay. Adding them would roughly double the bill.
- Only one tax is on this page. It is the local earned income tax that Allentown and Lower Macungie Township levy. State tax, federal tax and Social Security all still apply. All three are the same wherever in Pennsylvania you work.
- The dollar figures use a flat reference salary of sixty thousand a year. That is a benchmark, not an average for Allentown. No wage data exists for single municipalities, and inventing one would be worse. Scale the numbers to your own pay. The rate for the Lower Macungie Township commute is what matters, and it does not change with income.
- A postal address in Allentown does not prove which municipality taxes you. Boundaries and postcodes disagree often enough here that the state publishes a lookup. Philadelphia is a special case too. Its wage tax sits outside the rules that govern Lower Macungie Township.
- Pennsylvania's local rule is a greater-of rule, not an additive one: the liability for a Allentown resident working in Lower Macungie Township is the higher of the two applicable rates, not their sum. The distinction is worth stating plainly because the additive reading is intuitive and would overstate the charge by roughly a factor of two. What is divided between the municipalities is the remittance, not the worker's liability.
- The scope here is the municipal earned income tax alone. State, federal and payroll taxes are unaffected by the choice between Allentown and Lower Macungie Township and are therefore outside the model. A total tax position requires adding them; a comparison of the two locations does not.
- Dollar amounts are computed against a stated reference salary rather than a municipal wage average, which does not exist for Pennsylvania municipalities in any published source. Because the local tax is flat, the rate is invariant to income and the figures scale linearly — the Allentown to Lower Macungie Township differential doubles at twice the salary and halves at half of it.
- Municipal taxing jurisdiction is determined by boundary rather than by postal address, and the two diverge frequently enough in Pennsylvania that the DCED lookup should be treated as authoritative for Allentown. Philadelphia is additionally outside this regime, administering its own wage tax on residents and non-residents under separate authority, so it does not follow the treatment described for Lower Macungie Township.
Questions people ask
Do I pay local tax twice — once where I work and once where I live?
Only once, at the higher rate. Between Allentown's about 1.98% and Lower Macungie Township's about 1%, the larger governs — the two are never added together.
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 Allentown would.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you live. Allentown levies at least as much as Lower Macungie Township, so its rate applies and the crossing costs you nothing extra.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
Yes — 1,417 people make this exact journey, according to the federal employment survey that tracks where workers live against where they work. Routes below a volume floor are not published, so a page existing here means the commute is real and measured.
How does Pennsylvania's local earned income tax law allocate liability between two districts?
Pennsylvania's local earned income tax law assigns the higher of the residence rate (about 1.98%) and the non-resident work rate (about 1%); liabilities are never summed. The employer withholds at the governing rate and remits through the work district's collector, which then distributes to the residence district.
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.
Which district's rate governs on this route?
The residence rate equals or exceeds the work district's non-resident rate and therefore governs. Working outside the residence district does not increase employee liability on this route; it affects only inter-district distribution.
What is the basis for including this route?
Route volume is 1,417 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.