Kingston Borough to Wilkes-Barre
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · LUZERNE to LUZERNE County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1.84%
Kingston Borough, residents
Work rate
1%
Wilkes-Barre, non-residents
You pay
1.84%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxKingston Borough already charges its residents more than Wilkes-Barre 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 Wilkes-Barre costs you nothing extra. Kingston Borough charges residents about 1.84%, at least as much as Wilkes-Barre asks of people who work there but live elsewhere. The higher rate wins, so your home rate is simply the rate. That is $1,104 a year, wherever you work.
- More people take this route into Wilkes-Barre than any other tracked here — 984 of them, out of 4 routes in the data. Kingston Borough is where its workforce mostly lives.
- For the Kingston Borough to Wilkes-Barre commute the residence governs. Kingston Borough's resident rate of about 1.84% equals or exceeds Wilkes-Barre's non-resident rate, so Pennsylvania's greater-of test resolves to the resident rate and the effective burden is about 1.84%, or $1,104 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 is the largest recorded inflow to Wilkes-Barre, carrying 984 workers across 4 tracked routes. Kingston Borough therefore functions as the principal residential catchment for this workplace in the available data.
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 Kingston Borough | $1,104 |
|---|---|
| Working in Wilkes-Barre | $1,104 |
| 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
- A common worry, answered. You do not pay Kingston Borough and Wilkes-Barre 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.
- This covers the local tax only. Whatever Kingston Borough or Wilkes-Barre 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 Kingston 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 Wilkes-Barre.
- Check two things. A Kingston 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 Wilkes-Barre.
- Workers commuting from Kingston Borough to Wilkes-Barre 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.
- Only the local earned income tax component is modeled for the Kingston Borough to Wilkes-Barre 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 Kingston Borough earnings, for which no municipal-level published source exists. The local earned income tax is proportional, so all dollar figures for the Wilkes-Barre 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 Kingston 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 Wilkes-Barre generally.
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 1.84% where you live, about 1% where you work, and you pay the greater of the two.
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 Kingston Borough would.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you live. Kingston Borough levies at least as much as Wilkes-Barre, so its rate applies and the crossing costs you nothing extra.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
984 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 1.84%) 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 984 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.