West Hempfield Township to Manheim Township
Pennsylvania Act 32 local earned income tax · LANCASTER to LANCASTER County · tax year 2026
Home rate
1%
West Hempfield Township, residents
Work rate
1%
Manheim Township, 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 taxThe two rates are identical, so the test is a wash — but this pair sits exactly at the line, and any rise in Manheim Township's commuter rate would start costing you. 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 West Hempfield Township pays about 1% either way. It makes no difference whether they work at home or travel to Manheim Township. The home rate is the higher of the two, and the higher one wins. That is $600 a year.
- West Hempfield Township is one of 7 places sending workers into Manheim Township, ranking 6 by size with about 648 commuters. It is West Hempfield Township's 3 destination of 3.
- The West Hempfield Township to Manheim Township commute is tax-neutral. West Hempfield Township's resident rate of about 1% is not exceeded by Manheim Township'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.
- Across 7 inflows to Manheim Township tracked here, West Hempfield Township ranks 6 at 648 workers, and this is that municipality's 3 destination of 3. 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 West Hempfield Township | $600 |
|---|---|
| Working in Manheim Township | $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 West Hempfield Township and Manheim 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.
- 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 West Hempfield Township and Manheim Township. 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 West Hempfield Township. The local tax is a flat percentage. Scale every figure to your own salary and the Manheim Township conclusion holds.
- A postal address in West Hempfield 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 Manheim Township.
- The two rates applicable to a West Hempfield Township–Manheim 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.
- 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 West Hempfield Township–Manheim Township 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 West Hempfield Township. The flat structure of the local tax means the Manheim 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 West Hempfield 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 Manheim Township.
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 West Hempfield Township's about 1% and Manheim Township's about 1%, the larger governs — the two are never added together.
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?
West Hempfield 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: 648 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.
Both towns charge the same — does the boundary matter at all then?
Not to your total. West Hempfield Township and Manheim Township both levy about 1%, so the amount is settled either way — what the boundary decides is which authority receives it, and that is an accounting question rather than a cost to you.
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%); 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 648 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.
What is the effect of identical rates either side of the boundary?
Both jurisdictions levy about 1%, so the governing rate is identical regardless of which rule allocates it. The boundary affects revenue attribution between authorities, not employee liability.