What Louisiana 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.
Louisiana guide
On the ordinary retirement profile — $34,000 of Social Security and $61,000 of plan distributions — Louisiana takes $1,084 a year in state income tax.
That is the number people compare, and it is the smallest of three. Property tax adds about $1,432 on the state's $260,300 median home, and insurance another $5,937. The three together come to $8,453, placing Louisiana 32nd of 50.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Every Louisiana 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. Louisiana begins from federal adjusted gross income, so any federally taxable portion of benefits enters the Louisiana base and is then removed as exempt income under Schedule E code 07E: Social Security benefits that are taxed on the federal return are exempt from Louisiana tax, entered as the amount shown on federal Form 1040 or 1040-SR line 6b. No income threshold, no age condition, no phase-out.
On 401(k) and IRA distributions. The exclusion is per taxpayer, strictly age-gated at 65, and the amount doubled recently. Under La. R.S. 47:44.1, twelve thousand dollars of annual retirement income received by an individual sixty-five years of age or older is exempt from state income taxation. The figure was $6,000 and Act 11 doubled it to $12,000, so any source quoting $6,000 is describing superseded law. On a joint return it is $12,000 each, not per return: the Department's own worksheet has separate Taxpayer and Spouse columns with a $12,000 maximum in each, which is why married-joint is recorded at $24,000 - two separate per-person exemptions, available only where both spouses are 65 or older and both personally receive retirement income.
Read the full Louisiana guide →18 min read · Updated 2026-09-03