What Maine 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.
Maine guide
On the ordinary retirement profile — $34,000 of Social Security and $61,000 of plan distributions — Maine 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 $4,199 on the state's $428,478 median home, and insurance another $1,525. The three together come to $5,724, placing Maine 7th of 50.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Every Maine 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, and the exemption is broader than most: Maine Schedule 1S line 3 subtracts the taxable amount of Social Security benefits issued by the U.S. Government and railroad retirement benefits at both tier 1 and tier 2, together with unemployment and sick benefits issued by the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board, to the extent included in federal adjusted gross income (36 M.R.S. section 5122(2)(C)). No income threshold, no age condition, no phase-out. But see the pension deduction: Social Security is exempt in its own right and simultaneously reduces the pension income deduction dollar for dollar, so it is not free of consequence for a Maine retiree with pension income.
On 401(k) and IRA distributions. UP TO $48,216 per person, and the Social Security offset is the part that decides most real cases. Maine's pension income deduction is per person - the taxpayer and spouse may each deduct up to $48,216 of eligible pension income included in federal adjusted gross income, which is the basis for the $96,432 joint figure; it is two individual allowances, not a per-return cap. the offset: the $48,216 cap must be reduced by any Social Security and Railroad retirement benefits received, whether taxable or not. That last clause is the trap - the reduction uses gross benefits received, not the federally taxable portion, so a retiree with $36,000 of Social Security has only about $12,216 of pension deduction left even though none of that Social Security is taxed by Maine. What qualifies, and the list is broad: state and federal pension benefits, and retirement benefits from plans established and maintained by an employer for the benefit of its employees under IRC section 401(a) (including qualified simple 401 plans), 401(k) (qualified cash or deferred arrangements), and 403 (employee annuities); benefits from an individual retirement account under IRC section 408, a Roth IRA under 408A, a simple IRA under 408(p), and a simplified employee pension under 408(k); and benefits under IRC section 457(b) state and local government and tax-exempt organisation deferred compensation plans. What d
Read the full Maine guide →19 min read · Updated 2026-09-03