Penn Hills Township to Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · ALLEGHENY to ALLEGHENY County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1.75%
Penn Hills Township, residents
Work rate
1%
Pittsburgh, non-residents
You pay
1.75%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxPenn Hills Township 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
- Live in Penn Hills Township, work in Pittsburgh, and your local tax is your home rate: about 1.75%. That is $1,050 a year on a sixty-thousand salary. The work location adds nothing. Pennsylvania charges whichever rate is higher, and yours already is.
- Out of 85 routes into Pittsburgh in this data, yours is the busiest. About 7,157 people make the trip from Penn Hills Township, more than from anywhere else tracked.
- Around 7,157 people make this trip from Penn Hills Township into Pittsburgh for work. It is a well-worn route. That is part of why the tax treatment is worth setting out.
- Residence controls this pairing: Penn Hills Township levies about 1.75% on residents, at or above Pittsburgh's non-resident rate, so the outcome is the resident rate — about 1.75%, or $1,050 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.
- Among 85 inflows to Pittsburgh, the Penn Hills Township route is the largest at 7,157 workers. Concentration of this kind means the rate outcome described above applies to a substantial share of the workplace's staff rather than to a scattered few.
- The Penn Hills Township to Pittsburgh flow carries approximately 7,157 workers according to Census LODES origin-destination statistics — a substantial share of either municipality's workforce, and enough that the outcome here has aggregate fiscal consequence for both.
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 Penn Hills Township | $1,050 |
|---|---|
| Working in Pittsburgh | $1,050 |
| 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. Penn Hills Township and Pittsburgh 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 Penn Hills Township or Pittsburgh 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 Penn Hills Township. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the Pittsburgh conclusion holds.
- Two practical cautions. Postal addresses and taxing boundaries do not always agree. Your post may say Penn Hills Township while your taxing municipality is a different one. Pennsylvania publishes an official lookup to settle it. The same caution applies at the Pittsburgh end. Philadelphia is a special case too, with its own wage tax.
- Pennsylvania's local rule is a greater-of rule, not an additive one: the liability for a Penn Hills Township resident working in Pittsburgh 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 Penn Hills Township to Pittsburgh 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 Penn Hills Township. The flat structure of the local tax means the Pittsburgh comparison is scale-invariant, so the rate difference rather than the dollar difference is the transferable result.
- Two caveats bear on accuracy. First, postal addresses and municipal taxing boundaries diverge frequently in Pennsylvania, so a Penn Hills Township address should be confirmed against the DCED municipal lookup before relying on the Penn Hills Township rate. Second, Philadelphia administers its wage tax outside this framework, with its own resident and non-resident rates and its own credit arrangements, so any pairing touching it should be checked against the city's own schedule.
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 Penn Hills Township's about 1.75% and Pittsburgh's about 1%, the larger governs — the two are never added together.
Does working in a different town cost me anything?
Nothing extra. The tax is redirected rather than increased, so this particular crossing costs you no more than working in Penn Hills Township would.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you live. Penn Hills Township levies at least as much as Pittsburgh, so its rate applies and the crossing costs you nothing extra.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
7,157 workers make it. The pairing comes from federal commuting data rather than from guesswork, and thin routes are excluded rather than estimated.
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 1.75%) 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 7,157 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.