Jenkintown Borough to Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · MONTGOMERY to PHILADELPHIA County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Jenkintown Borough, residents
Work rate
3.43%
Philadelphia, non-residents
You pay
3.43%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$1,458
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
workplace governsPhiladelphia charges commuters more than Jenkintown Borough 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
- Commuting from Jenkintown Borough into Philadelphia raises your local tax. Home rate: about 1%. Work rate for non-residents: about 3.43%. You pay the higher. That works out at $2,058 a year, or $1,458 more than earning the same at home.
- This route is one of 94 into Philadelphia tracked here, ranking 63 by how many people travel it. Around 791 make the trip. Seen from the other end, Philadelphia is Jenkintown Borough's number 1 destination of 1.
- Philadelphia's non-resident rate of about 3.43% exceeds Jenkintown Borough's resident rate of about 1%, so the effective rate for this commute is about 3.43% — $2,058 at the reference salary, an increment of $1,458 over the home-only position. The state consolidated collection but did not equalise rates, which is why the workplace remains capable of raising the bill.
- Of 94 recorded inflows to Philadelphia, this route ranks 63 by worker count, carrying 791 commuters from Jenkintown Borough. Viewed from the origin it is that municipality's 1 destination of 1 recorded — neither the largest catchment nor a marginal one.
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 Jenkintown Borough | $600 |
|---|---|
| Working in Philadelphia | $2,058 |
| Difference | $1,458 |
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. Jenkintown Borough and Philadelphia 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 Jenkintown Borough or Philadelphia 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 Jenkintown Borough 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 Philadelphia.
- Check two things. A Jenkintown 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 Philadelphia.
- Pennsylvania's local rule is a greater-of rule, not an additive one: the liability for a Jenkintown Borough resident working in Philadelphia 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 Jenkintown Borough 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.
- The reference salary is a stated benchmark, not an estimate of Jenkintown Borough earnings, for which no municipal-level published source exists. The local earned income tax is proportional, so all dollar figures for the Philadelphia 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 Jenkintown 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 Philadelphia 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 Jenkintown Borough's about 1% and Philadelphia's about 3.43%, the larger governs — the two are never added together.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
Working across the line costs $1,458 a year here. The same salary earned in Jenkintown Borough would not carry it.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Philadelphia's, because it is the higher of the two. Where you work sets the rate on this route, and your home town receives its share out of what is collected rather than charging you separately.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
791 people travel it. Volume decides whether a route gets published at all, never what the tax on it 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 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 $1,458 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 791 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.