Buckingham Township to Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · BUCKS to PHILADELPHIA County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Buckingham Township, residents
Work rate
3.43%
Philadelphia, non-residents
You pay
3.43%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$1,458
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
workplace governsPhiladelphia charges commuters more than Buckingham Township charges its own residents, so the work rate wins the greater-of test and the difference is real money. 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
- This commute costs money. Work locally and Buckingham Township would charge you about 1%. But Philadelphia charges non-residents about 3.43%, and the higher rate applies. The difference is $1,458 a year, for a decision about where the office is.
- Buckingham Township is one of 94 places sending workers into Philadelphia, ranking 46 by size with about 964 commuters. It is Buckingham Township's 1 destination of 3.
- The Buckingham Township to Philadelphia pairing produces a workplace-driven liability. Against a resident rate of about 1%, Philadelphia's non-resident rate of about 3.43% is higher and therefore controls, giving about 3.43% and $2,058 annually. The workplace-attributable increment is $1,458. Workers frequently discover this only through withholding rather than in advance.
- Across 94 inflows to Philadelphia tracked here, Buckingham Township ranks 46 at 964 workers, and this is that municipality's 1 destination of 3. Rate and volume are independent: a large catchment is not necessarily a high-rate one, and the two rankings frequently disagree.
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 Buckingham Township | $600 |
|---|---|
| Working in Philadelphia | $2,058 |
| Difference | $1,458 |
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
- A common worry, answered. You do not pay Buckingham Township and Philadelphia both. Only one rate applies, the higher of the two. The two councils then sort out between themselves who gets what, and your bill is unaffected.
- Only one tax is on this page. It is the local earned income tax that Buckingham Township and Philadelphia 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 Buckingham Township. No wage data exists for single municipalities, and inventing one would be worse. Scale the numbers to your own pay. The rate for the Philadelphia commute is what matters, and it does not change with income.
- Two practical cautions. Postal addresses and taxing boundaries do not always agree. Your post may say Buckingham Township while your taxing municipality is a different one. Pennsylvania publishes an official lookup to settle it. The same caution applies at the Philadelphia end. Philadelphia is a special case too, with its own wage tax.
- Workers commuting from Buckingham Township to Philadelphia are subject to one rate, not two. The statute directs the employer to withhold the greater of the resident and non-resident rates; the allocation between the two taxing bodies is a remittance mechanic invisible to the employee. Treating the two rates as cumulative is the most common misreading of the statute.
- The scope here is the municipal earned income tax alone. State, federal and payroll taxes are unaffected by the choice between Buckingham Township and Philadelphia 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 Buckingham Township to Philadelphia differential doubles at twice the salary and halves at half of it.
- Two caveats bear on accuracy. First, postal addresses and municipal taxing boundaries diverge frequently in Pennsylvania, so a Buckingham Township address should be confirmed against the DCED municipal lookup before relying on the Buckingham Township rate. Second, Philadelphia administers its wage tax outside this framework, with its own resident and non-resident rates and its own credit arrangements, so any pairing touching it should be checked against the city's own schedule.
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% where you live, about 3.43% where you work, and you pay the greater of the two.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
$1,458 a year more than if you worked where you live. It is not a commuting charge and it buys you nothing — it is what falls out of two jurisdictions both having a claim and only one of them yielding.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Philadelphia sets it here. Its non-resident rate exceeds your home rate, so that is what is withheld.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
964 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.
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 3.43%); 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.
What is the marginal local tax cost of this commute?
Marginal annual liability attributable to working outside the residence jurisdiction is $1,458 at the reference salary. This is a tax cost rather than a commuting expense and is not deductible as one. It scales with income and with the rate differential, not with distance traveled.
Which district's rate governs on this route?
The work district's non-resident rate exceeds the residence rate and therefore governs. Withholding occurs at that rate, and distribution between the two districts happens after collection without further employee liability.
What is the measurement basis for a route of this size?
Route volume is 964 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.