What Connecticut 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.
Connecticut guide
On the ordinary retirement profile — $34,000 of Social Security and $61,000 of plan distributions — Connecticut takes $4,475 a year in state income tax.
That is the number people compare, and it is the smallest of three. Property tax adds about $8,779 on the state's $485,000 median home, and insurance another $2,690. The three together come to $15,944, placing Connecticut the most expensive state in the country on these three lines.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Every Connecticut 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. Connecticut is one of the eight states still taxing Social Security in 2026. The filing-status grouping is the thing most lists get wrong, and it was read off the return rather than assumed: Head of household is grouped with married filing jointly at $100,000, not with single at $75,000. Connecticut's own wording is that benefits are fully exempt 'if your required filing status is single or married filing separately and the amount reported on Form CT-1040, Line 1, is less than $75,000; or married filing jointly, qualifying surviving spouse, or head of household and the amount reported on Form CT-1040, Line 1, is less than $100,000.' Note also that married-separate sits at $75,000 with single rather than at half the joint figure. The threshold is measured against federal adjusted gross income — Form CT-1040 Line 1 is federal AGI, which is why thresholdBasis is federal-agi and not the state's own figure. Below the threshold the entire federally taxable benefit reported on federal Form 1040 Line 6b is subtracted. At or above it the benefit is partially exempt, not fully taxed: Connecticut's Social Security Benefit Adjustment Worksheet leaves 25% of the federally taxable benefit in the Connecticut base, so 75% remains exempt at every income level.
Read the full Connecticut guide →19 min read · Updated 2026-09-03