Penn Township to Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · BERKS to ALLEGHENY County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Penn Township, residents
Work rate
1%
Pittsburgh, non-residents
You pay
1%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxThe two rates are identical, so the test is a wash — but this pair sits exactly at the line, and any rise in Pittsburgh's commuter rate would start costing you. 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. Penn Township charges residents about 1%, 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 $600 a year, wherever you work.
- Penn Township is one of 85 places sending workers into Pittsburgh, ranking 33 by size with about 1,477 commuters. It is Penn Township's 1 destination of 1.
- For the Penn Township to Pittsburgh commute the residence governs. Penn Township's resident rate of about 1% 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%, or $600 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.
- Across 85 inflows to Pittsburgh tracked here, Penn Township ranks 33 at 1,477 workers, and this is that municipality's 1 destination of 1. Rate and volume are independent: a large catchment is not necessarily a high-rate one, and the two rankings frequently disagree.
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 Township | $600 |
|---|---|
| Working in Pittsburgh | $600 |
| 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 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.
- Only one tax is on this page. It is the local earned income tax that Penn Township 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 Penn Township 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.
- Check two things. A Penn 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 Pittsburgh.
- Pennsylvania's local rule is a greater-of rule, not an additive one: the liability for a Penn 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.
- The scope here is the municipal earned income tax alone. State, federal and payroll taxes are unaffected by the choice between Penn Township 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 Penn Township 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.
- Verify two things before relying on these figures. Municipal taxing boundaries do not track postal geography, so the applicable jurisdiction for a Penn 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 Pittsburgh generally.
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 Township's about 1% and Pittsburgh's about 1%, the larger governs — the two are never added together.
Does working in a different town cost me anything?
On this route, nothing. You owe exactly what you would have owed working at home — the boundary is real on a map and invisible on your pay stub, which is not true of every pair of towns here.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Penn Township sets it. Your residence rate is the larger, so it governs regardless of where the job is.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
1,477 workers make it. The pairing comes from federal commuting data rather than from guesswork, and thin routes are excluded rather than estimated.
Both towns charge the same — does the boundary matter at all then?
Not for what you pay. Both sides charge about 1%; the line only determines who banks it.
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%); 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 1,477 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.
What is the effect of identical rates either side of the boundary?
Both jurisdictions levy about 1%, so the governing rate is identical regardless of which rule allocates it. The boundary affects revenue attribution between authorities, not employee liability.