Plum Borough to Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · VENANGO to ALLEGHENY County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Plum Borough, 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
- Nothing changes for this commute. A resident of Plum Borough pays about 1% either way. It makes no difference whether they work at home or travel to Pittsburgh. The home rate is the higher of the two, and the higher one wins. That is $600 a year.
- Roughly 3,527 people commute from Plum Borough to Pittsburgh, which makes this route number 7 out of 85 tracked into that workplace. A normal-sized flow rather than a dominant one.
- This is not an unusual journey. About 3,527 people travel from Plum Borough to work in Pittsburgh. That makes it one of the busier commutes in the state.
- The Plum Borough to Pittsburgh commute is tax-neutral. Plum Borough's resident rate of about 1% is not exceeded by Pittsburgh's non-resident rate, so under the state's rule the resident rate applies and the effective figure is about 1% — $600 annually at the reference salary. Withholding is remitted to the residence in full and the work location receives no share.
- This flow carries 3,527 workers, ranking 7 among 85 recorded routes into Pittsburgh and 1 of 2 destinations recorded for Plum Borough. The rate outcome above therefore applies to a meaningful but not dominant share of that workplace's inbound commuters.
- Census origin-destination data records roughly 3,527 workers commuting from Plum Borough to Pittsburgh, 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 Plum Borough | $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
- A common worry, answered. You do not pay Plum Borough and Pittsburgh 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 Plum Borough and Pittsburgh. 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 Plum Borough. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the Pittsburgh conclusion holds.
- A postal address in Plum Borough does not prove which municipality taxes you. Boundaries and postcodes disagree often enough here that the state publishes a lookup. Philadelphia is a special case too. Its wage tax sits outside the rules that govern Pittsburgh.
- Workers commuting from Plum Borough to Pittsburgh 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 Plum Borough–Pittsburgh 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 Plum Borough. 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.
- Municipal taxing jurisdiction is determined by boundary rather than by postal address, and the two diverge frequently enough in Pennsylvania that the DCED lookup should be treated as authoritative for Plum Borough. Philadelphia is additionally outside this regime, administering its own wage tax on residents and non-residents under separate authority, so it does not follow the treatment described for Pittsburgh.
Questions people ask
Do I pay local tax twice — once where I work and once where I live?
No — you pay the higher of the two rates and never the sum. Plum Borough levies about 1% on residents and Pittsburgh levies about 1% on people who work there; whichever is larger is what you owe, and your employer withholds it.
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?
Plum Borough'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?
Yes — 3,527 people make this exact journey, according to the federal employment survey that tracks where workers live against where they work. Routes below a volume floor are not published, so a page existing here means the commute is real and measured.
Both towns charge the same — does the boundary matter at all then?
The rates match at about 1%, so the crossing moves money between authorities rather than out of your pocket.
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 3,527 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.