Washington Township to Waynesboro Borough
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · ARMSTRONG to FRANKLIN County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
Washington Township, residents
Work rate
0.5%
Waynesboro Borough, non-residents
You pay
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 taxWashington Township already charges its residents more than Waynesboro Borough 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 Washington Township pays about 1% either way. It makes no difference whether they work at home or travel to Waynesboro Borough. The home rate is the higher of the two, and the higher one wins. That is $600 a year.
- This is one of 2 places Washington Township residents commute to, ranking 2 by size. Few routes into Waynesboro Borough are recorded, so there is little to compare at that end.
- The Washington Township to Waynesboro Borough commute is tax-neutral. Washington Township's resident rate of about 1% is not exceeded by Waynesboro Borough's non-resident rate, so under the state's rule the resident rate applies and the effective figure is about 1% — $600 annually at the reference salary. Withholding is remitted to the residence in full and the work location receives no share.
- Among 2 destinations recorded for Washington Township, Waynesboro Borough ranks 2 by worker count. The destination side carries too few recorded inflows for a meaningful comparison across origins, so the origin-side position is the more informative one here.
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 Washington Township | $600 |
|---|---|
| Working in Waynesboro Borough | $600 |
| 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 Washington Township and Waynesboro Borough 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 Washington Township and Waynesboro Borough levy. State tax, federal tax and Social Security all still apply. All three are the same wherever in Pennsylvania you work.
- The dollar figures use a flat reference salary of sixty thousand a year. That is a benchmark, not an average for Washington 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 Waynesboro Borough commute is what matters, and it does not change with income.
- A postal address in Washington 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 Waynesboro Borough.
- The two rates applicable to a Washington Township–Waynesboro Borough 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 Washington Township and Waynesboro Borough and are therefore outside the model. A total tax position requires adding them; a comparison of the two locations does not.
- 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 Washington Township to Waynesboro Borough 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 Washington 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 Waynesboro Borough.
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. Washington Township levies about 1% on residents and Waynesboro Borough levies about 0.5% 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?
Washington Township sets it. Your residence rate is the larger, so it governs regardless of where the job is.
Is this commute common enough for the numbers to mean anything?
It is a smaller route: 538 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%) and the non-resident work rate (about 0.5%); 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 538 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.