Ferguson Township to College Township
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · CENTRE to CENTRE County · tax year 2026
Home rate
2.35%
Ferguson Township, residents
Work rate
1%
College Township, non-residents
You pay
2.35%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxFerguson Township already charges its residents more than College 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
- Good news for this commute. Working in College Township costs you nothing extra. Ferguson Township charges residents about 2.35%, at least as much as College Township asks of people who work there but live elsewhere. The higher rate wins, so your home rate is simply the rate. That is $1,410 a year, wherever you work.
- Nobody commuting into College Township pays more local tax than someone coming from Ferguson Township. There are 4 routes in this data and yours tops the list. That is worth knowing when comparing take-home with a colleague.
- For the Ferguson Township to College Township commute the residence governs. Ferguson Township's resident rate of about 2.35% equals or exceeds College Township's non-resident rate, so Pennsylvania's greater-of test resolves to the resident rate and the effective burden is about 2.35%, or $1,410 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 route ranks first for effective local rate across 4 inflows to College Township tracked here. The differential is a function of residence alone; salary, employer and workplace are held constant across the comparison.
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 Ferguson Township | $1,410 |
|---|---|
| Working in College Township | $1,410 |
| 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. Ferguson Township and College 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.
- This covers the local tax only. Whatever Ferguson Township or College Township takes sits on top of state tax, federal tax and Social Security. Those three do not care where you live or work.
- Sixty thousand a year is a benchmark. It is not a guess at what people in Ferguson 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 College Township.
- Check two things. A Ferguson 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 College Township.
- Pennsylvania's local rule is a greater-of rule, not an additive one: the liability for a Ferguson Township resident working in College 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.
- Only the local earned income tax component is modeled for the Ferguson Township to College Township 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.
- The reference salary is a stated benchmark, not an estimate of Ferguson Township earnings, for which no municipal-level published source exists. The local earned income tax is proportional, so all dollar figures for the College 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 Ferguson 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 College Township generally.
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 Ferguson Township's about 2.35% and College 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 Ferguson Township would.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Ferguson Township sets it. Your residence rate is the larger, so it governs regardless of where the job is.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
Yes — 1,540 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 2.35%) 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 1,540 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.