South Whitehall Township to Upper Macungie Township
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · LEHIGH to LEHIGH County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1.1%
South Whitehall Township, residents
Work rate
1%
Upper Macungie Township, non-residents
You pay
1.1%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxSouth Whitehall Township 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
- Nothing changes for this commute. A resident of South Whitehall Township pays about 1.1% either way. It makes no difference whether they work at home or travel to Upper Macungie Township. The home rate is the higher of the two, and the higher one wins. That is $660 a year.
- South Whitehall Township is one of 6 places sending workers into Upper Macungie Township, ranking 6 by size with about 535 commuters. It is South Whitehall Township's 3 destination of 3.
- The South Whitehall Township to Upper Macungie Township commute is tax-neutral. South Whitehall Township's resident rate of about 1.1% is not exceeded by Upper Macungie Township's non-resident rate, so under the state's rule the resident rate applies and the effective figure is about 1.1% — $660 annually at the reference salary. Withholding is remitted to the residence in full and the work location receives no share.
- Across 6 inflows to Upper Macungie Township tracked here, South Whitehall Township ranks 6 at 535 workers, and this is that municipality's 3 destination of 3. Rate and volume are independent: a large catchment is not necessarily a high-rate one, and the two rankings frequently disagree.
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 South Whitehall Township | $660 |
|---|---|
| Working in Upper Macungie Township | $660 |
| 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 South Whitehall Township and Upper Macungie 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.
- 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 South Whitehall Township and Upper Macungie Township. This page is about the layer that does.
- The dollar figures use a flat reference salary of sixty thousand a year. That is a benchmark, not an average for South Whitehall 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 Upper Macungie Township commute is what matters, and it does not change with income.
- A postal address in South Whitehall Township 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 Upper Macungie Township.
- Workers commuting from South Whitehall Township to Upper Macungie 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.
- 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 South Whitehall Township–Upper Macungie Township municipal boundary, which is precisely why they are excluded: isolating the layer that responds to the commute is the point of the comparison.
- 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 South Whitehall Township to Upper Macungie Township differential doubles at twice the salary and halves at half of it.
- 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 South Whitehall Township. 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 Upper Macungie Township.
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 1.1% 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?
Nothing extra. The tax is redirected rather than increased, so this particular crossing costs you no more than working in South Whitehall Township would.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you live. South Whitehall Township levies at least as much as Upper Macungie Township, so its rate applies and the crossing costs you nothing extra.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
It is a smaller route: 535 workers. That affects how representative it is, not whether the tax arithmetic applies — the rules are the same on a quiet road as a busy one.
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 1.1%) 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 measurement basis for a route of this size?
Route volume is 535 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.