No city income tax here in Gratiot County
Alma, Ithaca, and St. Louis charge no city income tax; the nearest cities that do are Saginaw and Lansing, which tax commuters' wages at nonresident rates.
A stone marker in Clapp Park in St. Louis claims the geographic center of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula — the “Middle of the Mitten,” a title the town campaigned for in the 1950s until the state made it official. Dead center of the state, then, and still outside the club that taxes paychecks. Twenty-four Michigan cities charge their own income tax on top of the state’s 4.25%, and Alma, Ithaca, and St. Louis have never been among them. Nothing extra comes out of a check earned in Gratiot County’s three cities.
Where the club does show up is in the commute. Saginaw, about 40 miles east on M-46, taxes nonresidents 0.75% on wages earned inside its limits. Lansing, straight down US-127, takes 0.5%. Work there and live here, and that line lands on your W-2 no matter what your home address says.
Otherwise the local tab is property tax, same as the townships all around. Alma spends Memorial Day weekend as “Scotland, USA,” when the Highland Festival fills the college town with bagpipes and caber tosses — kilts optional, city income-tax forms nonexistent.
Sources
Last reviewed against the listed sources: July 2, 2026.