Lancaster Township to East Hempfield Township
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · LANCASTER to LANCASTER County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1.6%
Lancaster Township, residents
Work rate
1%
East Hempfield Township, non-residents
You pay
1.6%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxLancaster Township already charges its residents more than East Hempfield Township 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
- Live in Lancaster Township, work in East Hempfield Township, and your local tax is your home rate: about 1.6%. That is $960 a year on a sixty-thousand salary. The work location adds nothing. Pennsylvania charges whichever rate is higher, and yours already is.
- Lancaster Township is one of 5 places sending workers into East Hempfield Township, ranking 5 by size with about 736 commuters. It is Lancaster Township's 5 destination of 7.
- Residence controls this pairing: Lancaster Township levies about 1.6% on residents, at or above East Hempfield Township's non-resident rate, so the outcome is the resident rate — about 1.6%, or $960 at the reference salary. Employers still withhold against the work location's collector, but the amount is unchanged and the residence is the ultimate recipient.
- Across 5 inflows to East Hempfield Township tracked here, Lancaster Township ranks 5 at 736 workers, and this is that municipality's 5 destination of 7. 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 Lancaster Township | $960 |
|---|---|
| Working in East Hempfield Township | $960 |
| 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
- One thing worth being clear about, because it catches people out. You are not charged by both places. Lancaster Township and East Hempfield Township 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.
- Only one tax is on this page. It is the local earned income tax that Lancaster Township and East Hempfield 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 Lancaster 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 East Hempfield Township.
- Check two things. A Lancaster 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 East Hempfield Township.
- Pennsylvania's local rule is a greater-of rule, not an additive one: the liability for a Lancaster Township resident working in East Hempfield Township 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.
- The scope here is the municipal earned income tax alone. State, federal and payroll taxes are unaffected by the choice between Lancaster Township and East Hempfield 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 Lancaster Township earnings, for which no municipal-level published source exists. The local earned income tax is proportional, so all dollar figures for the East Hempfield 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 Lancaster 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 East Hempfield Township 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 Lancaster Township's about 1.6% and East Hempfield Township's about 1%, the larger governs — the two are never added together.
Does working in a different town cost me anything?
On this route, nothing. You owe exactly what you would have owed working at home — the boundary is real on a map and invisible on your pay stub, which is not true of every pair of towns here.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Lancaster Township sets it. Your residence rate is the larger, so it governs regardless of where the job is.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
It is a smaller route: 736 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 1.6%) 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 736 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.