Pittsburgh to McCandless Township
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · ALLEGHENY to ALLEGHENY County · tax year 2026
Home rate
3%
Pittsburgh, residents
Work rate
1%
McCandless Township, non-residents
You pay
3%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxPittsburgh already charges its residents more than McCandless 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
- Nothing changes for this commute. A resident of Pittsburgh pays about 3% either way. It makes no difference whether they work at home or travel to McCandless Township. The home rate is the higher of the two, and the higher one wins. That is $1,800 a year.
- From Pittsburgh, this is destination number 12 of 23 tracked. From McCandless Township, there is little to compare with. Few other routes into it are recorded.
- The Pittsburgh to McCandless Township commute is tax-neutral. Pittsburgh's resident rate of about 3% is not exceeded by McCandless Township's non-resident rate, so under the state's rule the resident rate applies and the effective figure is about 3% — $1,800 annually at the reference salary. Withholding is remitted to the residence in full and the work location receives no share.
- From the origin, McCandless Township is Pittsburgh's 12 destination of 23 recorded. From the destination, recorded inflows are too few to rank origins against one another, which is common for smaller workplaces in this dataset.
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 Pittsburgh | $1,800 |
|---|---|
| Working in McCandless Township | $1,800 |
| 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 Pittsburgh and McCandless Township 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.
- This covers the local tax only. Whatever Pittsburgh or McCandless Township takes sits on top of state tax, federal tax and Social Security. Those three do not care where you live or work.
- The dollar figures use a flat reference salary of sixty thousand a year. That is a benchmark, not an average for Pittsburgh. No wage data exists for single municipalities, and inventing one would be worse. Scale the numbers to your own pay. The rate for the McCandless 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 Pittsburgh while your taxing municipality is a different one. Pennsylvania publishes an official lookup to settle it. The same caution applies at the McCandless Township end. Philadelphia is a special case too, with its own wage tax.
- Workers commuting from Pittsburgh to McCandless Township 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.
- Only the local earned income tax component is modeled for the Pittsburgh to McCandless Township 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.
- 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 Pittsburgh to McCandless 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 Pittsburgh address should be confirmed against the DCED municipal lookup before relying on the Pittsburgh 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?
The rates compete rather than stack. about 3% 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?
The one where you live. Pittsburgh levies at least as much as McCandless Township, so its rate applies and the crossing costs you nothing extra.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
1,002 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%) 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 1,002 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.