Greene Township to Guilford Township
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · MERCER to FRANKLIN County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Greene Township, residents
Work rate
1%
Guilford 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 Guilford 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 Guilford Township costs you nothing extra. Greene Township charges residents about 1%, at least as much as Guilford 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.
- From Greene Township, this is destination number 3 of 3 tracked. From Guilford Township, there is little to compare with. Few other routes into it are recorded.
- For the Greene Township to Guilford Township commute the residence governs. Greene Township's resident rate of about 1% equals or exceeds Guilford 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.
- From the origin, Guilford Township is Greene Township's 3 destination of 3 recorded. From the destination, recorded inflows are too few to rank origins against one another, which is common for smaller workplaces in this dataset.
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 Guilford 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 Greene Township and Guilford 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.
- Only one tax is on this page. It is the local earned income tax that Greene Township and Guilford Township levy. State tax, federal tax and Social Security all still apply. All three are the same wherever in Pennsylvania you work.
- Sixty thousand a year is a benchmark. It is not a guess at what people in Greene 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 Guilford Township.
- Check two things. A Greene 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 Guilford Township.
- The two rates applicable to a Greene Township–Guilford 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.
- The scope here is the municipal earned income tax alone. State, federal and payroll taxes are unaffected by the choice between Greene Township and Guilford Township and are therefore outside the model. A total tax position requires adding them; a comparison of the two locations does not.
- The reference salary is a stated benchmark, not an estimate of Greene Township earnings, for which no municipal-level published source exists. The local earned income tax is proportional, so all dollar figures for the Guilford 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 Greene 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 Guilford 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. Greene Township levies about 1% on residents and Guilford 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?
Not a cent on this one. The crossing changes where the money is sent, not how much of it leaves, so your total matches a stay-at-home commute.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you live. Greene Township levies at least as much as Guilford Township, so its rate applies and the crossing costs you nothing extra.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
549 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?
Not for what you pay. Both sides charge about 1%; the line only determines who banks it.
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 549 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.