Logan Township to Altoona
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · BLAIR to BLAIR County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Logan Township, residents
Work rate
1.4%
Altoona, non-residents
You pay
1.4%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$240
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
workplace governsAltoona charges commuters more than Logan 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
- This commute costs money. Work locally and Logan Township would charge you about 1%. But Altoona charges non-residents about 1.4%, and the higher rate applies. The difference is $240 a year, for a decision about where the office is.
- This is one of 1 places Logan Township residents commute to, ranking 1 by size. Few routes into Altoona are recorded, so there is little to compare at that end.
- The Logan Township to Altoona pairing produces a workplace-driven liability. Against a resident rate of about 1%, Altoona's non-resident rate of about 1.4% is higher and therefore controls, giving about 1.4% and $840 annually. The workplace-attributable increment is $240. Workers frequently discover this only through withholding rather than in advance.
- Among 1 destinations recorded for Logan Township, Altoona ranks 1 by worker count. The destination side carries too few recorded inflows for a meaningful comparison across origins, so the origin-side position is the more informative one here.
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 Logan Township | $600 |
|---|---|
| Working in Altoona | $840 |
| Difference | $240 |
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. Logan Township and Altoona 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 Logan Township or Altoona takes sits on top of state tax, federal tax and Social Security. Those three do not care where you live or work.
- All the dollar amounts rest on one assumed salary. It is stated rather than measured, because nobody publishes average pay for Logan Township. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the Altoona conclusion holds.
- A postal address in Logan Township does not prove which municipality taxes you. Boundaries and postcodes disagree often enough here that the state publishes a lookup. Philadelphia is a special case too. Its wage tax sits outside the rules that govern Altoona.
- Pennsylvania's local rule is a greater-of rule, not an additive one: the liability for a Logan Township resident working in Altoona 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 Logan Township to Altoona 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.
- Monetary figures derive from a single stated salary assumption; no published wage series covers Pennsylvania municipalities such as Logan Township. The flat structure of the local tax means the Altoona comparison is scale-invariant, so the rate difference rather than the dollar difference is the transferable result.
- Municipal taxing jurisdiction is determined by boundary rather than by postal address, and the two diverge frequently enough in Pennsylvania that the DCED lookup should be treated as authoritative for Logan Township. Philadelphia is additionally outside this regime, administering its own wage tax on residents and non-residents under separate authority, so it does not follow the treatment described for Altoona.
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 Logan Township's about 1% and Altoona's about 1.4%, the larger governs — the two are never added together.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
About $240 a year. That is the gap between this commute and an identical job in Logan Township, and it exists purely because the boundary sits between them.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Altoona 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?
677 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%) and the non-resident work rate (about 1.4%); 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 $240 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 677 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.