Upper Allen Township to Hampden Township
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · CUMBERLAND to CUMBERLAND County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1.7%
Upper Allen Township, residents
Work rate
1%
Hampden Township, non-residents
You pay
1.7%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$0
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
no extra local taxUpper Allen Township already charges its residents more than Hampden 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 Upper Allen Township pays about 1.7% either way. It makes no difference whether they work at home or travel to Hampden Township. The home rate is the higher of the two, and the higher one wins. That is $1,020 a year.
- Cheapest of the lot. This dataset covers 3 routes into Hampden Township, and coming from Upper Allen Township means the lowest local tax rate of any of them.
- The Upper Allen Township to Hampden Township commute is tax-neutral. Upper Allen Township's resident rate of about 1.7% is not exceeded by Hampden Township's non-resident rate, so under the state's rule the resident rate applies and the effective figure is about 1.7% — $1,020 annually at the reference salary. Withholding is remitted to the residence in full and the work location receives no share.
- This route ranks last for effective local rate — that is, cheapest — among 3 recorded inflows to Hampden Township. The comparison holds workplace constant, so the difference reflects residence and nothing else.
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 Upper Allen Township | $1,020 |
|---|---|
| Working in Hampden Township | $1,020 |
| 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
- To be explicit, since the arrangement invites confusion. The rates for Upper Allen Township and Hampden Township are not stacked. Pennsylvania takes the larger one. What is collected then gets divided between the two municipalities. That division does not change what comes out of your pay.
- Only one tax is on this page. It is the local earned income tax that Upper Allen Township and Hampden Township levy. State tax, federal tax and Social Security all still apply. All three are the same wherever in Pennsylvania you work.
- All the dollar amounts rest on one assumed salary. It is stated rather than measured, because nobody publishes average pay for Upper Allen Township. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the Hampden Township conclusion holds.
- Check two things. A Upper Allen 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 Hampden Township.
- The two rates applicable to a Upper Allen Township–Hampden Township commute are alternatives, not addends. The statute fixes the employee's liability at the greater of them and then apportions the proceeds, with the residence receiving up to its own rate and the excess passing to the work location. The apportionment is fiscally significant to the municipalities and immaterial to the worker.
- The scope here is the municipal earned income tax alone. State, federal and payroll taxes are unaffected by the choice between Upper Allen Township and Hampden Township and are therefore outside the model. A total tax position requires adding them; a comparison of the two locations does not.
- Monetary figures derive from a single stated salary assumption; no published wage series covers Pennsylvania municipalities such as Upper Allen Township. The flat structure of the local tax means the Hampden Township comparison is scale-invariant, so the rate difference rather than the dollar difference is the transferable result.
- Verify two things before relying on these figures. Municipal taxing boundaries do not track postal geography, so the applicable jurisdiction for a Upper Allen 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 Hampden Township generally.
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. Upper Allen Township levies about 1.7% on residents and Hampden Township 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?
On this route, nothing. You owe exactly what you would have owed working at home — the boundary is real on a map and invisible on your pay stub, which is not true of every pair of towns here.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you live. Upper Allen Township levies at least as much as Hampden Township, so its rate applies and the crossing costs you nothing extra.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
692 workers make this journey — enough to be published, but not a major corridor. The tax rules do not depend on how many people travel a route, so the figures hold regardless; the count only tells you how typical this pairing 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 1.7%) 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 692 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.