Bensalem Township to Middletown Township
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · BUCKS to BUCKS County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Bensalem Township, residents
Work rate
1%
Middletown Township, non-residents
You pay
1%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxThe two rates are identical, so the test is a wash — but this pair sits exactly at the line, and any rise in Middletown Township's commuter rate would start costing you. 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
- Good news for this commute. Working in Middletown Township costs you nothing extra. Bensalem Township charges residents about 1%, at least as much as Middletown Township asks of people who work there but live elsewhere. The higher rate wins, so your home rate is simply the rate. That is $600 a year, wherever you work.
- Roughly 953 people commute from Bensalem Township to Middletown Township, which makes this route number 2 out of 3 tracked into that workplace. A normal-sized flow rather than a dominant one.
- For the Bensalem Township to Middletown Township commute the residence governs. Bensalem Township's resident rate of about 1% equals or exceeds Middletown Township's non-resident rate, so Pennsylvania's greater-of test resolves to the resident rate and the effective burden is about 1%, or $600 at the reference salary. The workplace adds nothing; the entire amount is remitted to the residence. This is the majority outcome and the one most commuters need confirmed.
- This flow carries 953 workers, ranking 2 among 3 recorded routes into Middletown Township and 3 of 6 destinations recorded for Bensalem Township. The rate outcome above therefore applies to a meaningful but not dominant share of that workplace's inbound commuters.
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 Bensalem Township | $600 |
|---|---|
| Working in Middletown Township | $600 |
| 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
- To be explicit, since the arrangement invites confusion. The rates for Bensalem Township and Middletown Township are not stacked. Pennsylvania takes the larger one. What is collected then gets divided between the two municipalities. That division does not change what comes out of your pay.
- Everything here is the local earned income tax and nothing else. State income tax applies on top, as do federal tax and Social Security. None of those change when you cross a municipal line between Bensalem Township and Middletown Township. This page is about the layer that does.
- Sixty thousand a year is a benchmark. It is not a guess at what people in Bensalem Township earn. No published wage figure exists for single municipalities. The rate is the durable part of this page. The dollars scale straight up and down with whatever you earn in Middletown Township.
- Check two things. A Bensalem Township 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 Middletown Township.
- The two rates applicable to a Bensalem Township–Middletown Township commute are alternatives, not addends. The statute fixes the employee's liability at the greater of them and then apportions the proceeds, with the residence receiving up to its own rate and the excess passing to the work location. The apportionment is fiscally significant to the municipalities and immaterial to the worker.
- Figures cover the local earned income tax exclusively. Pennsylvania's flat state income tax, federal income tax and FICA apply in addition and are invariant to the Bensalem Township–Middletown Township municipal boundary, which is precisely why they are excluded: isolating the layer that responds to the commute is the point of the comparison.
- The reference salary is a stated benchmark, not an estimate of Bensalem Township earnings, for which no municipal-level published source exists. The local earned income tax is proportional, so all dollar figures for the Middletown Township commute scale linearly with income and the rate comparison holds at every salary.
- Verify two things before relying on these figures. Municipal taxing boundaries do not track postal geography, so the applicable jurisdiction for a Bensalem Township 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 Middletown Township generally.
Questions people ask
Do I pay local tax twice — once where I work and once where I live?
No — you pay the higher of the two rates and never the sum. Bensalem Township levies about 1% on residents and Middletown Township levies about 1% on people who work there; whichever is larger is what you owe, and your employer withholds it.
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 Bensalem Township would.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Bensalem Township's, because it is the higher of the two. Where you live sets the rate on this route, so working across the boundary does not raise what you owe — it only changes who collects it.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
953 workers make this journey — enough to be published, but not a major corridor. The tax rules do not depend on how many people travel a route, so the figures hold regardless; the count only tells you how typical this pairing is.
Both towns charge the same — does the boundary matter at all then?
The rates match at about 1%, so the crossing moves money between authorities rather than out of your pocket.
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%) 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 measurement basis for a route of this size?
Route volume is 953 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 1%, so the governing rate is identical regardless of which rule allocates it. The boundary affects revenue attribution between authorities, not employee liability.