Upper Saucon Township to Bethlehem
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · LEHIGH to LEHIGH County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1.1%
Upper Saucon Township, residents
Work rate
1%
Bethlehem, 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 taxUpper Saucon Township already charges its residents more than Bethlehem 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 Bethlehem costs you nothing extra. Upper Saucon Township charges residents about 1.1%, at least as much as Bethlehem asks of people who work there but live elsewhere. The higher rate wins, so your home rate is simply the rate. That is $660 a year, wherever you work.
- Roughly 628 people commute from Upper Saucon Township to Bethlehem, which makes this route number 7 out of 12 tracked into that workplace. A normal-sized flow rather than a dominant one.
- For the Upper Saucon Township to Bethlehem commute the residence governs. Upper Saucon Township's resident rate of about 1.1% equals or exceeds Bethlehem's non-resident rate, so Pennsylvania's greater-of test resolves to the resident rate and the effective burden is about 1.1%, or $660 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 628 workers, ranking 7 among 12 recorded routes into Bethlehem and 2 of 2 destinations recorded for Upper Saucon 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 Upper Saucon Township | $660 |
|---|---|
| Working in Bethlehem | $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
- To be explicit, since the arrangement invites confusion. The rates for Upper Saucon Township and Bethlehem 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.
- 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 Upper Saucon Township and Bethlehem. This page is about the layer that does.
- All the dollar amounts rest on one assumed salary. It is stated rather than measured, because nobody publishes average pay for Upper Saucon Township. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the Bethlehem conclusion holds.
- Check two things. A Upper Saucon 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 Bethlehem.
- The two rates applicable to a Upper Saucon Township–Bethlehem 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.
- 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 Upper Saucon Township–Bethlehem municipal boundary, which is precisely why they are excluded: isolating the layer that responds to the commute is the point of the comparison.
- Monetary figures derive from a single stated salary assumption; no published wage series covers Pennsylvania municipalities such as Upper Saucon Township. The flat structure of the local tax means the Bethlehem 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 Saucon 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 Bethlehem 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 Saucon Township levies about 1.1% on residents and Bethlehem 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?
Nothing extra. The tax is redirected rather than increased, so this particular crossing costs you no more than working in Upper Saucon Township would.
Which town's rate am I actually paying?
The one where you live. Upper Saucon Township levies at least as much as Bethlehem, so its rate applies and the crossing costs you nothing extra.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
628 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 1.1%) 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 628 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.