What Arizona actually takes from a 401(k) withdrawal, a pension, and Social Security — in dollars, against the state’s own brackets and exclusions rather than a yes-or-no list.
Long-term index-fund growth after expense-ratio drag — and what your state takes from the gains at withdrawal.
When your RMDs start under SECURE 2.0, how much this year's is, and what missing it costs.
2026 limits, employer match, the 60-63 super catch-up, and whether the Roth catch-up mandate applies to you.
A required minimum distribution is ordinary income, taxed at your top bracket and often pushing you into the next one. Here is the federal tax on RMDs from $20,000 to $75,000 at different income levels, why the default 10% withholding usually leaves a bill, how to avoid an underpayment penalty, and the three side effects that make the real rate higher than the bracket.
The required minimum distribution on every common balance at every age from 73 to 95, worked from the IRS table, plus what happens to the account over twenty years of withdrawals at 0%, 5% and 7% returns. The short version: the share you must take rises every year, and at good returns the dollar amount keeps rising with it.
What moving actually saves, on your own income mix rather than a headline rate — and how to establish domicile so the state you left cannot follow you.
Which account to draw first, priced. The three cliffs a withdrawal can cross without warning, the conversion window almost nobody uses, and why the order is the last big decision you can still change.
Arizona guide
On the ordinary retirement profile — $34,000 of Social Security and $61,000 of plan distributions — Arizona takes $1,131 a year in state income tax.
That is the number people compare, and it is the smallest of three. Property tax adds about $2,152 on the state's $448,407 median home, and insurance another $2,135. The three together come to $5,418, placing Arizona 4th of 50.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Every Arizona figure comes from this site's own fifty-state income-tax dataset and its retirement tax engine, computed for a single filer aged 70 unless stated otherwise; property tax, median home price and insurance figures come from the site's core state dataset. Rates are for tax year 2025. Property tax is assessed locally in most states, so the effective rate here is a statewide figure rather than your county's.
On Social Security. Fully exempt, with no age condition and no income threshold. A.R.S. 43-1022(10) subtracts from Arizona gross income 'the amount included in federal adjusted gross income pursuant to section 86 of the internal revenue code, relating to taxation of social security and railroad retirement benefits' — so whatever portion of benefits the federal return taxes, Arizona backs out in full. Railroad Retirement Tier 1 and Tier 2 benefits are excluded on the same authority, confirmed in the 2025 Form 140 instructions.
On 401(k) and IRA distributions. Fully taxable at the 2.5% flat rate. There is no general exclusion for 401(k), 403(b) or traditional IRA distributions, no age trigger, and no income limit. This is worth stating flatly because Arizona is often described as retiree-friendly on the strength of its Social Security exemption and its unlimited military pension exemption — neither of which touches a private-sector 401(k). Arizona's only pension subtractions are source-specific (US government and Arizona state or local service, and military retirement) rather than plan-type specific, so the plan a private-sector worker actually has is the one Arizona does not relieve. The saving grace is the rate: at 2.5% flat, a fully taxed distribution still costs less in Arizona than a partially excluded one does in most graduated-rate states.
Read the full Arizona guide →17 min read · Updated 2026-09-03