Greene Township to Erie
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · MERCER to ERIE County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Greene Township, residents
Work rate
1.65%
Erie, non-residents
You pay
1.65%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$390
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
workplace governsErie charges commuters more than Greene 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 Greene Township would charge you about 1%. But Erie charges non-residents about 1.65%, and the higher rate applies. The difference is $390 a year, for a decision about where the office is.
- Roughly 783 people commute from Greene Township to Erie, which makes this route number 6 out of 10 tracked into that workplace. A normal-sized flow rather than a dominant one.
- The Greene Township to Erie pairing produces a workplace-driven liability. Against a resident rate of about 1%, Erie's non-resident rate of about 1.65% is higher and therefore controls, giving about 1.65% and $990 annually. The workplace-attributable increment is $390. Workers frequently discover this only through withholding rather than in advance.
- This flow carries 783 workers, ranking 6 among 10 recorded routes into Erie and 2 of 3 destinations recorded for Greene 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 Greene Township | $600 |
|---|---|
| Working in Erie | $990 |
| Difference | $390 |
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 Greene Township and Erie 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.
- 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 Greene Township and Erie. This page is about the layer that does.
- All the dollar amounts rest on one assumed salary. It is stated rather than measured, because nobody publishes average pay for Greene Township. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the Erie conclusion holds.
- A postal address in Greene Township does not prove which municipality taxes you. Boundaries and postcodes disagree often enough here that the state publishes a lookup. Philadelphia is a special case too. Its wage tax sits outside the rules that govern Erie.
- Workers commuting from Greene Township to Erie 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.
- 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 Greene Township–Erie municipal boundary, which is precisely why they are excluded: isolating the layer that responds to the commute is the point of the comparison.
- Monetary figures derive from a single stated salary assumption; no published wage series covers Pennsylvania municipalities such as Greene Township. The flat structure of the local tax means the Erie comparison is scale-invariant, so the rate difference rather than the dollar difference is the transferable result.
- Municipal taxing jurisdiction is determined by boundary rather than by postal address, and the two diverge frequently enough in Pennsylvania that the DCED lookup should be treated as authoritative for Greene Township. Philadelphia is additionally outside this regime, administering its own wage tax on residents and non-residents under separate authority, so it does not follow the treatment described for Erie.
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 1.65% where you work, and you pay the greater of the two.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
About $390 a year. That is the gap between this commute and an identical job in Greene Township, and it exists purely because the boundary sits between them.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you work. Erie levies more than Greene Township does, so its rate is the one applied and the difference is distributed between them afterwards.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
783 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 1.65%); 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 $390 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 783 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.