Lower Makefield Township to Middletown Township
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · BUCKS to BUCKS County · tax year 2026
Home rate
0%
Lower Makefield Township, residents
Work rate
1%
Middletown Township, non-residents
You pay
1%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$600
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
workplace governsMiddletown Township charges commuters more than Lower Makefield 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
- Living in Lower Makefield Township costs you nothing in local income tax. Working in Middletown Township costs you about 1% of your pay. That is the whole bill. None of it would exist if you worked at home. On sixty thousand it comes to $600 a year.
- You are on the cheapest route into Middletown Township. Out of 3 commutes tracked here, Lower Makefield Township carries the lowest local rate. Colleagues traveling in from elsewhere pay more than you for the same job.
- Lower Makefield Township levies no resident earned income tax, so a resident working locally owes nothing. Under the state's rule the employer must withhold the greater of the resident rate or the work location's non-resident rate, and Middletown Township levies about 1% on non-residents. The effective burden is therefore about 1% — $600 annually at the reference salary — arising entirely from the workplace and not at all from the residence.
- Lower Makefield Township carries the lowest effective local rate across 3 routes into Middletown Township recorded here. The saving is attributable entirely to residence, since workplace and salary are constant across the comparison.
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 Makefield Township | $0 |
|---|---|
| Working in Middletown Township | $600 |
| Difference | $600 |
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 Makefield Township and Middletown Township 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.
- Only one tax is on this page. It is the local earned income tax that Lower Makefield Township and Middletown Township levy. State tax, federal tax and Social Security all still apply. All three are the same wherever in Pennsylvania you work.
- All the dollar amounts rest on one assumed salary. It is stated rather than measured, because nobody publishes average pay for Lower Makefield Township. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the Middletown Township conclusion holds.
- A postal address in Lower Makefield 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 Middletown Township.
- Workers commuting from Lower Makefield Township to Middletown Township 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.
- The scope here is the municipal earned income tax alone. State, federal and payroll taxes are unaffected by the choice between Lower Makefield Township and Middletown Township and are therefore outside the model. A total tax position requires adding them; a comparison of the two locations does not.
- Monetary figures derive from a single stated salary assumption; no published wage series covers Pennsylvania municipalities such as Lower Makefield Township. The flat structure of the local tax means the Middletown Township 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 Lower Makefield 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 Middletown Township.
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 0% where you live, about 1% where you work, and you pay the greater of the two.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
About $600 a year. That is the gap between this commute and an identical job in Lower Makefield Township, and it exists purely because the boundary sits between them.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Middletown Township'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?
It is a smaller route: 561 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.
My own town charges no income tax — so why is any taken?
Because the tax follows the job as well as the address. Lower Makefield Township levies nothing on residents, but Middletown Township levies about 1% on people who work there — and living somewhere untaxed does not exempt you from where you earn.
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 0%) 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.
What is the marginal local tax cost of this commute?
Marginal annual liability attributable to working outside the residence jurisdiction is $600 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 561 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.
How does a zero residence rate interact with a work-district levy?
A zero residence rate removes the residence claim but not the work-district claim. Middletown Township levies about 1% on non-resident earnings sourced within it, and with no residence tax there is no credit mechanism to offset it against.