State College Borough to College Township
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · CENTRE to CENTRE County · tax year 2026
Home rate
2.25%
State College Borough, residents
Work rate
1%
College Township, non-residents
You pay
2.25%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxState College Borough already charges its residents more than College 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
- Live in State College Borough, work in College Township, and your local tax is your home rate: about 2.25%. That is $1,350 a year on a sixty-thousand salary. The work location adds nothing. Pennsylvania charges whichever rate is higher, and yours already is.
- Out of 4 routes into College Township in this data, yours is the busiest. About 1,706 people make the trip from State College Borough, more than from anywhere else tracked.
- Residence controls this pairing: State College Borough levies about 2.25% on residents, at or above College Township's non-resident rate, so the outcome is the resident rate — about 2.25%, or $1,350 at the reference salary. Employers still withhold against the work location's collector, but the amount is unchanged and the residence is the ultimate recipient.
- Among 4 inflows to College Township, the State College Borough route is the largest at 1,706 workers. Concentration of this kind means the rate outcome described above applies to a substantial share of the workplace's staff rather than to a scattered few.
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 State College Borough | $1,350 |
|---|---|
| Working in College Township | $1,350 |
| 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 State College Borough and College 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 State College Borough or College Township 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 State College Borough. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the College Township conclusion holds.
- A postal address in State College 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 College Township.
- Workers commuting from State College Borough to College 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 State College Borough to College 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.
- Monetary figures derive from a single stated salary assumption; no published wage series covers Pennsylvania municipalities such as State College Borough. The flat structure of the local tax means the College Township 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 State College 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 College 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 2.25% 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 State College Borough would.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
State College 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 — 1,706 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 2.25%) 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 1,706 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.