Murrysville to Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · WESTMORELAND to ALLEGHENY County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1.2%
Murrysville, residents
Work rate
1%
Pittsburgh, non-residents
You pay
1.2%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxMurrysville already charges its residents more than Pittsburgh 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 Pittsburgh costs you nothing extra. Murrysville charges residents about 1.2%, at least as much as Pittsburgh asks of people who work there but live elsewhere. The higher rate wins, so your home rate is simply the rate. That is $720 a year, wherever you work.
- Roughly 2,169 people commute from Murrysville to Pittsburgh, which makes this route number 18 out of 85 tracked into that workplace. A normal-sized flow rather than a dominant one.
- For the Murrysville to Pittsburgh commute the residence governs. Murrysville's resident rate of about 1.2% equals or exceeds Pittsburgh's non-resident rate, so Pennsylvania's greater-of test resolves to the resident rate and the effective burden is about 1.2%, or $720 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 flow carries 2,169 workers, ranking 18 among 85 recorded routes into Pittsburgh and 1 of 2 destinations recorded for Murrysville. 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 Murrysville | $720 |
|---|---|
| Working in Pittsburgh | $720 |
| 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 Murrysville and Pittsburgh 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 Murrysville and Pittsburgh 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 Murrysville 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 Pittsburgh.
- A postal address in Murrysville 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 Pittsburgh.
- Workers commuting from Murrysville to Pittsburgh 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 Murrysville and Pittsburgh 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 Murrysville earnings, for which no municipal-level published source exists. The local earned income tax is proportional, so all dollar figures for the Pittsburgh commute scale linearly with income and the rate comparison holds at every salary.
- 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 Murrysville. 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 Pittsburgh.
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 1.2% 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?
Not a cent on this one. The crossing changes where the money is sent, not how much of it leaves, so your total matches a stay-at-home commute.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Murrysville's, because it is the higher of the two. Where you live sets the rate on this route, so working across the boundary does not raise what you owe — it only changes who collects it.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
Yes — 2,169 people make this exact journey, according to the federal employment survey that tracks where workers live against where they work. Routes below a volume floor are not published, so a page existing here means the commute is real and measured.
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 1.2%) 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 basis for including this route?
Route volume is 2,169 workers, sourced from Census LODES origin-destination data. Pairs below the publication threshold are excluded rather than imputed, so page existence reflects measured commuting volume.