Hilltown Township to Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · BUCKS to PHILADELPHIA County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1.5%
Hilltown Township, residents
Work rate
3.43%
Philadelphia, non-residents
You pay
3.43%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$1,158
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
workplace governsPhiladelphia charges commuters more than Hilltown 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
- Where you work costs more than where you live here. Hilltown Township charges residents about 1.5%. Philadelphia charges non-residents about 3.43%. You pay the higher one. That is $2,058 a year, or $1,158 more than working at home would cost.
- Hilltown Township is one of 94 places sending workers into Philadelphia, ranking 87 by size with about 539 commuters. It is Hilltown Township's 1 destination of 1.
- On the Hilltown Township to Philadelphia commute the work location governs. Hilltown Township's resident rate is about 1.5% and Philadelphia's non-resident rate is about 3.43%; Pennsylvania's greater-of test therefore fixes the effective rate at about 3.43%. At the reference salary that is $2,058, of which $1,158 is attributable to the workplace. The residence collects its own rate and the excess is remitted to the work location.
- Across 94 inflows to Philadelphia tracked here, Hilltown Township ranks 87 at 539 workers, and this is that municipality's 1 destination of 1. 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 Hilltown Township | $900 |
|---|---|
| Working in Philadelphia | $2,058 |
| Difference | $1,158 |
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 Hilltown Township and Philadelphia 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.
- This covers the local tax only. Whatever Hilltown Township or Philadelphia 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 Hilltown 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 Hilltown 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.
- The two rates applicable to a Hilltown Township–Philadelphia 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.
- Only the local earned income tax component is modeled for the Hilltown Township to Philadelphia 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 Hilltown 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 Hilltown Township address should be confirmed against the DCED municipal lookup before relying on the Hilltown 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?
No — you pay the higher of the two rates and never the sum. Hilltown Township levies about 1.5% on residents and Philadelphia levies about 3.43% on people who work there; whichever is larger is what you owe, and your employer withholds it.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
Working across the line costs $1,158 a year here. The same salary earned in Hilltown Township would not carry it.
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?
It is a smaller route: 539 workers. That affects how representative it is, not whether the tax arithmetic applies — the rules are the same on a quiet road as a busy one.
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 1.5%) 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 $1,158 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 539 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.