Philadelphia to Upper Macungie Township
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · PHILADELPHIA to LEHIGH County · tax year 2026
Home rate
3.74%
Philadelphia, residents
Work rate
1%
Upper Macungie Township, 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 Upper Macungie Township 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 Upper Macungie Township costs you nothing extra. Philadelphia charges residents about 3.74%, at least as much as Upper Macungie Township asks of people who work there but live elsewhere. The higher rate wins, so your home rate is simply the rate. That is $2,244 a year, wherever you work.
- Among everyone commuting into Upper Macungie Township, you are at the top for local tax. This dataset tracks 6 routes into Upper Macungie Township, and Philadelphia carries the highest rate of any of them. Your neighbors on the same journey from elsewhere pay less than you do.
- For the Philadelphia to Upper Macungie Township commute the residence governs. Philadelphia's resident rate of about 3.74% equals or exceeds Upper Macungie Township's non-resident rate, so Pennsylvania's greater-of test resolves to the resident rate and the effective burden is about 3.74%, or $2,244 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.
- Philadelphia carries the highest effective local rate across 6 commuting routes into Upper Macungie Township recorded here. Two workers doing the same job at the same employer therefore face different local liabilities depending purely on residence, and this route is the most expensive of the set.
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 Upper Macungie Township | $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
- One thing worth being clear about, because it catches people out. You are not charged by both places. Philadelphia and Upper Macungie Township 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 Philadelphia and Upper Macungie Township levy. State tax, federal tax and Social Security all still apply. All three are the same wherever in Pennsylvania you work.
- The dollar figures use a flat reference salary of sixty thousand a year. That is a benchmark, not an average for Philadelphia. No wage data exists for single municipalities, and inventing one would be worse. Scale the numbers to your own pay. The rate for the Upper Macungie Township commute is what matters, and it does not change with income.
- Two practical cautions. Postal addresses and taxing boundaries do not always agree. Your post may say Philadelphia while your taxing municipality is a different one. Pennsylvania publishes an official lookup to settle it. The same caution applies at the Upper Macungie Township 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 Philadelphia resident working in Upper Macungie Township 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 Philadelphia and Upper Macungie Township and are therefore outside the model. A total tax position requires adding them; a comparison of the two locations does not.
- Dollar amounts are computed against a stated reference salary rather than a municipal wage average, which does not exist for Pennsylvania municipalities in any published source. Because the local tax is flat, the rate is invariant to income and the figures scale linearly — the Philadelphia to Upper Macungie Township differential doubles at twice the salary and halves at half of it.
- Two caveats bear on accuracy. First, postal addresses and municipal taxing boundaries diverge frequently in Pennsylvania, so a Philadelphia address should be confirmed against the DCED municipal lookup before relying on the Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia's about 3.74% and Upper Macungie Township's about 1%, the larger governs — the two are never added together.
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?
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 commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
759 workers make this journey — enough to be published, but not a major corridor. The tax rules do not depend on how many people travel a route, so the figures hold regardless; the count only tells you how typical this pairing is.
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 measurement basis for a route of this size?
Route volume is 759 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.