What California 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.
California guide
On the ordinary retirement profile — $34,000 of Social Security and $61,000 of plan distributions — California takes $1,853 a year in state income tax.
That is the number people compare, and it is the smallest of three. Property tax adds about $6,332 on the state's $904,640 median home, and insurance another $1,335. The three together come to $9,520, placing California 36th of 50.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Every California 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 income threshold and no age condition. The 2025 Instructions for Schedule CA (540) state that California excludes U.S. Social Security benefits and equivalent Tier 1 railroad retirement benefits from taxable income; the federally taxable portion is entered as a subtraction. FTB Publication 1005 adds that Tier 2 railroad retirement benefits reported on federal Form RRB-1099-R are also untaxed. Two narrow exceptions worth stating: Foreign social security IS taxable by California as annuity income, and retirement benefits paid by an individual railroad rather than the Railroad Retirement Board are taxable.
On 401(k) and IRA distributions. Fully taxed as ordinary income at the regular 1%-12.3% schedule. There is no age-based exclusion, no dollar exclusion, and no income threshold — California is one of the least generous states in the country on 401(k), 403(b), and traditional IRA withdrawals. The 2025 Schedule CA (540) instructions say plainly that generally no adjustment is made on the IRA-distribution and pension lines, so the federally taxable amount flows straight through. Separate early-withdrawal penalty, and it is on top of the federal one: California imposes its own additional tax of 2.5% on the taxable part of a distribution taken before age 59 1/2 (form FTB 3805P, Part I, line 4), which is stacked on the federal 10% penalty. For a distribution from a simple IRA within the first two years, the California rate is 6% rather than 2.5%.
Read the full California guide →17 min read · Updated 2026-09-03