Prospect Park Borough to Philadelphia
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · DELAWARE to PHILADELPHIA County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Prospect Park Borough, residents
Work rate
3.43%
Philadelphia, non-residents
You pay
3.43%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$1,458
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
workplace governsPhiladelphia charges commuters more than Prospect Park Borough charges its own residents, so the work rate wins the greater-of test and the difference is real money. 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
- Where you work costs more than where you live here. Prospect Park Borough charges residents about 1%. Philadelphia charges non-residents about 3.43%. You pay the higher one. That is $2,058 a year, or $1,458 more than working at home would cost.
- This route is one of 94 into Philadelphia tracked here, ranking 71 by how many people travel it. Around 738 make the trip. Seen from the other end, Philadelphia is Prospect Park Borough's number 1 destination of 1.
- On the Prospect Park Borough to Philadelphia commute the work location governs. Prospect Park Borough's resident rate is about 1% and Philadelphia's non-resident rate is about 3.43%; Pennsylvania's greater-of test therefore fixes the effective rate at about 3.43%. At the reference salary that is $2,058, of which $1,458 is attributable to the workplace. The residence collects its own rate and the excess is remitted to the work location.
- Of 94 recorded inflows to Philadelphia, this route ranks 71 by worker count, carrying 738 commuters from Prospect Park Borough. Viewed from the origin it is that municipality's 1 destination of 1 recorded — neither the largest catchment nor a marginal one.
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 Prospect Park Borough | $600 |
|---|---|
| Working in Philadelphia | $2,058 |
| Difference | $1,458 |
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. Prospect Park Borough and Philadelphia 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.
- This covers the local tax only. Whatever Prospect Park Borough or Philadelphia takes sits on top of state tax, federal tax and Social Security. Those three do not care where you live or work.
- All the dollar amounts rest on one assumed salary. It is stated rather than measured, because nobody publishes average pay for Prospect Park Borough. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the Philadelphia conclusion holds.
- A postal address in Prospect Park 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 Philadelphia.
- Pennsylvania's local rule is a greater-of rule, not an additive one: the liability for a Prospect Park Borough resident working in Philadelphia 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.
- Only the local earned income tax component is modeled for the Prospect Park Borough to Philadelphia 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.
- Monetary figures derive from a single stated salary assumption; no published wage series covers Pennsylvania municipalities such as Prospect Park Borough. The flat structure of the local tax means the Philadelphia 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 Prospect Park 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 Philadelphia.
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 Prospect Park Borough's about 1% and Philadelphia's about 3.43%, the larger governs — the two are never added together.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
Working across the line costs $1,458 a year here. The same salary earned in Prospect Park Borough would not carry it.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Philadelphia sets it here. Its non-resident rate exceeds your home rate, so that is what is withheld.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
738 people travel it. Volume decides whether a route gets published at all, never what the tax on it 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 1%) and the non-resident work rate (about 3.43%); 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.
What is the marginal local tax cost of this commute?
Marginal annual liability attributable to working outside the residence jurisdiction is $1,458 at the reference salary. This is a tax cost rather than a commuting expense and is not deductible as one. It scales with income and with the rate differential, not with distance traveled.
Which district's rate governs on this route?
The work district's non-resident rate exceeds the residence rate and therefore governs. Withholding occurs at that rate, and distribution between the two districts happens after collection without further employee liability.
What is the measurement basis for a route of this size?
Route volume is 738 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.