Lower Macungie Township to Allentown
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · LEHIGH to LEHIGH County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1.15%
Lower Macungie Township, residents
Work rate
1.28%
Allentown, non-residents
You pay
1.28%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$78
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
workplace governsAllentown charges commuters more than Lower Macungie 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 Lower Macungie Township would charge you about 1.15%. But Allentown charges non-residents about 1.28%, and the higher rate applies. The difference is $78 a year, for a decision about where the office is.
- Roughly 994 people commute from Lower Macungie Township to Allentown, which makes this route number 4 out of 12 tracked into that workplace. A normal-sized flow rather than a dominant one.
- The Lower Macungie Township to Allentown pairing produces a workplace-driven liability. Against a resident rate of about 1.15%, Allentown's non-resident rate of about 1.28% is higher and therefore controls, giving about 1.28% and $768 annually. The workplace-attributable increment is $78. Workers frequently discover this only through withholding rather than in advance.
- This flow carries 994 workers, ranking 4 among 12 recorded routes into Allentown and 1 of 4 destinations recorded for Lower Macungie Township. The rate outcome above therefore applies to a meaningful but not dominant share of that workplace's inbound commuters.
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 Lower Macungie Township | $690 |
|---|---|
| Working in Allentown | $768 |
| Difference | $78 |
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 Lower Macungie Township and Allentown 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 Lower Macungie Township or Allentown 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 Lower Macungie Township. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the Allentown conclusion holds.
- Check two things. A Lower Macungie 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 Allentown.
- Workers commuting from Lower Macungie Township to Allentown 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 Lower Macungie Township to Allentown 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 Lower Macungie Township. The flat structure of the local tax means the Allentown comparison is scale-invariant, so the rate difference rather than the dollar difference is the transferable result.
- Verify two things before relying on these figures. Municipal taxing boundaries do not track postal geography, so the applicable jurisdiction for a Lower Macungie 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 Allentown generally.
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. Lower Macungie Township levies about 1.15% on residents and Allentown levies about 1.28% 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?
About $78 a year. That is the gap between this commute and an identical job in Lower Macungie Township, and it exists purely because the boundary sits between them.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you work. Allentown levies more than Lower Macungie Township does, so its rate is the one applied and the difference is distributed between them afterwards.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
994 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 1.15%) and the non-resident work rate (about 1.28%); 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 $78 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 994 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.