Upper Macungie Township to Allentown
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · LEHIGH to LEHIGH County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Upper Macungie Township, residents
Work rate
1.28%
Allentown, non-residents
You pay
1.28%
the higher of the two
Cost of the commute
$168
a year, above the home rate
What this commute costs you
workplace governsAllentown charges commuters more than Upper Macungie Township 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
- Commuting from Upper Macungie Township into Allentown raises your local tax. Home rate: about 1%. Work rate for non-residents: about 1.28%. You pay the higher. That works out at $768 a year, or $168 more than earning the same at home.
- Upper Macungie Township is one of 12 places sending workers into Allentown, ranking 5 by size with about 945 commuters. It is Upper Macungie Township's 1 destination of 2.
- Allentown's non-resident rate of about 1.28% exceeds Upper Macungie Township's resident rate of about 1%, so the effective rate for this commute is about 1.28% — $768 at the reference salary, an increment of $168 over the home-only position. The state consolidated collection but did not equalise rates, which is why the workplace remains capable of raising the bill.
- Across 12 inflows to Allentown tracked here, Upper Macungie Township ranks 5 at 945 workers, and this is that municipality's 1 destination of 2. 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 Upper Macungie Township | $600 |
|---|---|
| Working in Allentown | $768 |
| Difference | $168 |
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 Macungie Township and Allentown 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 Macungie Township and Allentown 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 Macungie Township. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the Allentown conclusion holds.
- Two practical cautions. Postal addresses and taxing boundaries do not always agree. Your post may say Upper Macungie Township while your taxing municipality is a different one. Pennsylvania publishes an official lookup to settle it. The same caution applies at the Allentown end. Philadelphia is a special case too, with its own wage tax.
- The two rates applicable to a Upper Macungie Township–Allentown 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 Macungie Township and Allentown 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 Macungie Township. The flat structure of the local tax means the Allentown comparison is scale-invariant, so the rate difference rather than the dollar difference is the transferable result.
- Two caveats bear on accuracy. First, postal addresses and municipal taxing boundaries diverge frequently in Pennsylvania, so a Upper Macungie Township address should be confirmed against the DCED municipal lookup before relying on the Upper Macungie Township rate. Second, Philadelphia administers its wage tax outside this framework, with its own resident and non-resident rates and its own credit arrangements, so any pairing touching it should be checked against the city's own schedule.
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 Upper Macungie Township's about 1% and Allentown's about 1.28%, the larger governs — the two are never added together.
What does crossing this boundary actually cost me?
Working across the line costs $168 a year here. The same salary earned in Upper Macungie Township would not carry it.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
Allentown 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?
945 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%) and the non-resident work rate (about 1.28%); 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 $168 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 945 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.