What New York 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.
New York guide
On the ordinary retirement profile — $34,000 of Social Security and $61,000 of plan distributions — New York takes $1,617 a year in state income tax.
That is the number people compare, and it is the smallest of three. Property tax adds about $6,960 on the state's $480,000 median home, and insurance another $1,710. The three together come to $10,287, placing New York 38th of 50.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Every New York 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. New York does not tax Social Security benefits. The federally taxable portion carried into federal AGI is subtracted in full on the New York return, with no income threshold, no age condition, and no phase-out. Railroad Retirement Board benefits are treated the same way.
On 401(k) and IRA distributions. the $20,000 figure is per taxpayer, not per return, and that distinction is the reason the married-joint entry reads $40,000 rather than $20,000. New York's pension and annuity income exclusion lets each individual who was 59 1/2 before the start of the tax year subtract up to $20,000 of qualifying pension and annuity income — including 401(k), 403(b) and traditional IRA distributions — from federal AGI. On a joint return where both spouses are 59 1/2 and both have their own qualifying income, each subtracts up to $20,000 against their own income, for $40,000 combined. A joint return where only one spouse has retirement income gets $20,000, not $40,000: the exclusions are not transferable between spouses. Four conditions that summaries drop: (1) the cap is $20,000 in total per person regardless of how many sources the income comes from, so two separate IRAs do not produce two exclusions; (2) a taxpayer who turns 59 1/2 during the year may exclude only the income received after reaching that age; (3) the exclusion is not available at all before 59 1/2, so an early retiree at 57 gets nothing; and (4) it does not apply to income already fully excluded as a government pension — see the pensions block, where the interaction matters. The exclusion amount is a fixed statutory figure and is not indexed for inflation.
Read the full New York guide →18 min read · Updated 2026-09-03