Philadelphia to Jenkintown Borough
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · PHILADELPHIA to MONTGOMERY County · tax year 2026
Home rate
3.74%
Philadelphia, residents
Work rate
1%
Jenkintown Borough, non-residents
You pay
3.74%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxPhiladelphia already charges its residents more than Jenkintown Borough 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 Philadelphia, work in Jenkintown Borough, and your local tax is your home rate: about 3.74%. That is $2,244 a year on a sixty-thousand salary. The work location adds nothing. Pennsylvania charges whichever rate is higher, and yours already is.
- Jenkintown Borough is one of the main places Philadelphia sends its workers — number 4 of 69 destinations tracked, carrying about 4,770 people. This is a well-worn route rather than an unusual one.
- This is not an unusual journey. About 4,770 people travel from Philadelphia to work in Jenkintown Borough. That makes it one of the busier commutes in the state.
- Residence controls this pairing: Philadelphia levies about 3.74% on residents, at or above Jenkintown Borough's non-resident rate, so the outcome is the resident rate — about 3.74%, or $2,244 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.
- This is a principal destination for Philadelphia residents: 4 of 69 tracked, carrying 4,770 workers to Jenkintown Borough. The tax outcome described above therefore applies to a substantial and stable share of that municipality's outbound commuters.
- Census origin-destination data records roughly 4,770 workers commuting from Philadelphia to Jenkintown Borough, placing this among Pennsylvania's larger intra-state flows. The rate outcome described above therefore applies at meaningful scale rather than to an edge case.
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 Philadelphia | $2,244 |
|---|---|
| Working in Jenkintown Borough | $2,244 |
| 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 Philadelphia and Jenkintown Borough 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.
- Everything here is the local earned income tax and nothing else. State income tax applies on top, as do federal tax and Social Security. None of those change when you cross a municipal line between Philadelphia and Jenkintown Borough. This page is about the layer that does.
- All the dollar amounts rest on one assumed salary. It is stated rather than measured, because nobody publishes average pay for Philadelphia. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the Jenkintown Borough conclusion holds.
- Check two things. A Philadelphia 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 Jenkintown Borough.
- Workers commuting from Philadelphia to Jenkintown Borough 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.
- Figures cover the local earned income tax exclusively. Pennsylvania's flat state income tax, federal income tax and FICA apply in addition and are invariant to the Philadelphia–Jenkintown Borough municipal boundary, which is precisely why they are excluded: isolating the layer that responds to the commute is the point of the comparison.
- Monetary figures derive from a single stated salary assumption; no published wage series covers Pennsylvania municipalities such as Philadelphia. The flat structure of the local tax means the Jenkintown Borough 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 Philadelphia 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 Jenkintown Borough generally.
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 3.74% 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?
Nothing extra. The tax is redirected rather than increased, so this particular crossing costs you no more than working in Philadelphia would.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Philadelphia'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?
4,770 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 3.74%) 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 4,770 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.