What Georgia 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.
Georgia guide
On the ordinary retirement profile — $34,000 of Social Security and $61,000 of plan distributions — Georgia takes $0 a year in state income tax.
That is the number people compare, and it is the smallest of three. Property tax adds about $2,808 on the state's $360,000 median home, and insurance another $3,225. The three together come to $6,033, placing Georgia 10th of 50.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Every Georgia 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 2026. 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 cap, no age test, and no income phase-out. The 2025 IT-511 booklet lists as subtraction item 5 'Social Security or Railroad Retirement (Tier 1 and Tier 2) paid by the Railroad Retirement Board included in Federal adjusted gross income.' an Important interaction that is easy to get backwards: Social Security is exempted separately from, and does not consume any part of, the retirement income exclusion described below. The IT-511's retirement-income-exclusion worksheet instructions expressly say Social Security and Railroad Retirement should not be included in the exclusion calculation — so a 65-year-old gets the Social Security exemption and the full $65,000 exclusion, rather than the benefits eating into the exclusion.
On 401(k) and IRA distributions. Georgia's retirement income exclusion under O.C.G.A. 48-7-27 is the main event for retirees here, and it has three features that published lists routinely flatten. (1) two age tiers: the maximum is $35,000 for a taxpayer aged 62 through 64, and $65,000 for a taxpayer aged 65 or older. A taxpayer aged 62 to 64 gets $35,000 ($70,000 on a joint return where both qualify). Someone under 62 gets nothing unless permanently and totally disabled, in which case the $35,000 tier applies at any age — the IT-511 defines that as disabled 'to such an extent that they are unable to perform any type of gainful employment.' (2) it is per person, not per return. The IT-511 states that the exclusion is available to the taxpayer and their spouse but each must qualify on a separate basis, so a married couple both aged 65 or older can exclude up to $130,000 — which is why the married-joint figure above is $130,000 rather than $65,000.
Read the full Georgia guide →19 min read · Updated 2026-09-03