Scott Township to Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · COLUMBIA to ALLEGHENY County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1.55%
Scott Township, residents
Work rate
1%
Pittsburgh, non-residents
You pay
1.55%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxScott Township already charges its residents more than Pittsburgh 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 Pittsburgh costs you nothing extra. Scott Township charges residents about 1.55%, at least as much as Pittsburgh asks of people who work there but live elsewhere. The higher rate wins, so your home rate is simply the rate. That is $930 a year, wherever you work.
- Roughly 2,342 people commute from Scott Township to Pittsburgh, which makes this route number 15 out of 85 tracked into that workplace. A normal-sized flow rather than a dominant one.
- For the Scott Township to Pittsburgh commute the residence governs. Scott Township's resident rate of about 1.55% equals or exceeds Pittsburgh's non-resident rate, so Pennsylvania's greater-of test resolves to the resident rate and the effective burden is about 1.55%, or $930 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.
- This flow carries 2,342 workers, ranking 15 among 85 recorded routes into Pittsburgh and 1 of 1 destinations recorded for Scott Township. The rate outcome above therefore applies to a meaningful but not dominant share of that workplace's inbound commuters.
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 Scott Township | $930 |
|---|---|
| Working in Pittsburgh | $930 |
| 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 Scott Township 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.
- This covers the local tax only. Whatever Scott Township or Pittsburgh 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 Scott Township. No wage data exists for single municipalities, and inventing one would be worse. Scale the numbers to your own pay. The rate for the Pittsburgh commute is what matters, and it does not change with income.
- Check two things. A Scott Township 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 Pittsburgh.
- Workers commuting from Scott Township 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.
- Only the local earned income tax component is modeled for the Scott Township to Pittsburgh 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 Scott Township to Pittsburgh differential doubles at twice the salary and halves at half of it.
- Verify two things before relying on these figures. Municipal taxing boundaries do not track postal geography, so the applicable jurisdiction for a Scott Township 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 Pittsburgh 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 1.55% 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. Scott Township levies at least as much as Pittsburgh, so its rate applies and the crossing costs you nothing extra.
Is this a common enough commute to be worth modeling?
Yes — 2,342 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.
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 1.55%) 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 2,342 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.