Allentown to Upper 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%
Upper 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 Upper 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
- Live in Allentown, work in Upper Macungie Township, and your local tax is your home rate: about 1.98%. That is $1,185 a year on a sixty-thousand salary. The work location adds nothing. Pennsylvania charges whichever rate is higher, and yours already is.
- Allentown sends more workers to Upper Macungie Township than any other place tracked here: 4,123 of them, across 6 routes in the data. It is the main feeder for this workplace.
- This is not an unusual journey. About 4,123 people travel from Allentown to work in Upper Macungie Township. That makes it one of the busier commutes in the state.
- Residence controls this pairing: Allentown levies about 1.98% on residents, at or above Upper Macungie Township's non-resident rate, so the outcome is the resident rate — about 1.98%, or $1,185 at the reference salary. Employers still withhold against the work location's collector, but the amount is unchanged and the residence is the ultimate recipient.
- The Allentown to Upper Macungie Township flow is the largest of 6 recorded, at 4,123 workers. That makes the local tax treatment described here the modal experience for people working in Upper Macungie Township rather than an edge case.
- Census origin-destination data records roughly 4,123 workers commuting from Allentown to Upper Macungie Township, placing this among Pennsylvania's larger intra-state flows. The rate outcome described above therefore applies at meaningful scale rather than to an edge case.
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 Upper 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 Upper 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 Upper 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 Upper Macungie Township commute is what matters, and it does not change with income.
- Check two things. A Allentown postal address may not match your taxing municipality. That catches out plenty of people near a boundary, and the state has an official lookup for it. Philadelphia is the other one to watch. It runs its wage tax separately, outside the pattern used for Upper Macungie Township.
- Pennsylvania's local rule is a greater-of rule, not an additive one: the liability for a Allentown resident working in Upper 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 Upper 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 Upper Macungie Township differential doubles at twice the salary and halves at half of it.
- Verify two things before relying on these figures. Municipal taxing boundaries do not track postal geography, so the applicable jurisdiction for a Allentown address should be confirmed through the state's official lookup. Separately, Philadelphia's wage tax operates outside this framework and is not governed by the greater-of rule applied here, which affects any pairing involving the city rather than Upper Macungie Township generally.
Questions people ask
Do I pay local tax twice — once where I work and once where I live?
The rates compete rather than stack. about 1.98% where you live, about 1% where you work, and you pay the greater of the two.
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 Upper Macungie Township, so its rate applies and the crossing costs you nothing extra.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
4,123 workers make it. The pairing comes from federal commuting data rather than from guesswork, and thin routes are excluded rather than estimated.
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 4,123 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.