Dunmore Borough to Scranton
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · LACKAWANNA to LACKAWANNA County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Dunmore Borough, residents
Work rate
1%
Scranton, 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 Scranton'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
- Live in Dunmore Borough, work in Scranton, and your local tax is your home rate: about 1%. That is $600 a year on a sixty-thousand salary. The work location adds nothing. Pennsylvania charges whichever rate is higher, and yours already is.
- Dunmore Borough sends more workers to Scranton than any other place tracked here: 1,603 of them, across 10 routes in the data. It is the main feeder for this workplace.
- Residence controls this pairing: Dunmore Borough levies about 1% on residents, at or above Scranton's non-resident rate, so the outcome is the resident rate — about 1%, or $600 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 Dunmore Borough to Scranton flow is the largest of 10 recorded, at 1,603 workers. That makes the local tax treatment described here the modal experience for people working in Scranton rather than 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 Dunmore Borough | $600 |
|---|---|
| Working in Scranton | $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
- A common worry, answered. You do not pay Dunmore Borough and Scranton 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.
- This covers the local tax only. Whatever Dunmore Borough or Scranton takes sits on top of state tax, federal tax and Social Security. Those three do not care where you live or work.
- The dollar figures use a flat reference salary of sixty thousand a year. That is a benchmark, not an average for Dunmore Borough. No wage data exists for single municipalities, and inventing one would be worse. Scale the numbers to your own pay. The rate for the Scranton commute is what matters, and it does not change with income.
- Check two things. A Dunmore Borough 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 Scranton.
- Workers commuting from Dunmore Borough to Scranton 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.
- Only the local earned income tax component is modeled for the Dunmore Borough to Scranton commute. State and federal liabilities are constant across Pennsylvania municipalities and are excluded so the municipal differential is visible rather than buried inside a larger total.
- 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 Dunmore Borough to Scranton 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 Dunmore Borough 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 Scranton 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% 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 Dunmore Borough would.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Dunmore Borough'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 a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
1,603 workers make it. The pairing comes from federal commuting data rather than from guesswork, and thin routes are excluded rather than estimated.
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 basis for including this route?
Route volume is 1,603 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.
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.