The county on my pay or tax setup looks wrong — how county is determined

Last updated: August 31, 2026

Applies to: US workers paid through Ascen who live or work somewhere with a county or other local income tax — Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland and Ohio are common examples. If your state has no local income tax, no county appears in your tax setup and this article won’t apply to you.

Summary: County is not a field you or we choose. It is worked out automatically from the address on your profile using USPS address data. If the street, city, state and ZIP code on your profile are correct, there is nothing to change — even if a screen shows a county name you did not expect.

Why you can’t pick your county

Local income tax is tied to a legal address, so the platform derives the county from the address you have on file rather than letting it be typed in. That prevents a mismatch between the address used for your tax forms and the county used to calculate local withholding. It also means correcting the county on its own is not possible — the address is the thing that drives it.

What to do

  1. Check the address on your profile: street, unit number, city, state and ZIP code. See How to update your personal information (address, name, phone, email).

  2. If the address is correct: no action is needed. The county shown will resolve from that address and your local tax will be calculated on it.

  3. If the address is wrong or out of date: get the address corrected first. The county follows automatically once the address is right.

If you still think the local tax is wrong

If your address is correct and you believe local tax is being withheld for the wrong locality, email support@ascen.com with a screenshot of what you are seeing and the address you expect it to match. Which localities levy a county or city income tax, and at what rate, varies by your work and home location — so a colleague on the same assignment in a different county can legitimately see something different. You can see what was actually withheld on your pay stub: Understanding your US pay stub: earnings, taxes, and deductions.

Ascen does not give tax advice. If you need to know which locality you owe tax to, speak to a tax professional or your state or county revenue office.