What Maryland 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.
Maryland guide
On the ordinary retirement profile — $34,000 of Social Security and $61,000 of plan distributions — Maryland takes $603 a year in state income tax.
That is the number people compare, and it is the smallest of three. Property tax adds about $4,264 on the state's $463,449 median home, and insurance another $2,845. The three together come to $7,712, placing Maryland 27th of 50.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Every Maryland 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. Maryland does not tax Social Security or Railroad Retirement benefits. Any amount taxable on the federal return and carried into Maryland AGI is subtracted in full on Form 502, with no income threshold and no age condition. It is not merely exempt, it is an offset: benefits received under the Social Security Act and Railroad Retirement Act reduce the pension exclusion dollar for dollar (see qualifiedPlanDistributions), and for that purpose all benefits received are counted, not just the portion that was federally taxable.
On 401(k) and IRA distributions. The scope is narrower than the dollar figure suggests, and this is the most commonly misstated Maryland fact. The $40,600 maximum pension exclusion for calendar year 2026 applies only to income received as a pension, annuity or endowment from an employee retirement System qualified under Internal Revenue Code section 401(a), 403 or 457(b). A 401(k) or 403(b) distribution qualifies. An IRA does not. The Comptroller lists the disqualified vehicles explicitly: a traditional IRA, a Roth IRA, a rollover IRA, a simplified employee plan (SEP), a Keogh plan, an ineligible deferred compensation plan, and foreign retirement income all fail to qualify. A retiree who rolled a 401(k) into an IRA has, in Maryland, converted excludable income into fully taxable income.
Read the full Maryland guide →18 min read · Updated 2026-09-03