What Pennsylvania 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.
Pennsylvania guide
On the ordinary retirement profile — $34,000 of Social Security and $61,000 of plan distributions — Pennsylvania 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 $4,420 on the state's $340,000 median home, and insurance another $2,045. The three together come to $6,465, placing Pennsylvania 17th of 50.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Every Pennsylvania 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. Pennsylvania does not tax Social Security, and the mechanism is structural rather than a deduction. Pennsylvania taxes eight enumerated classes of income and Social Security is in none of them; the Department of Revenue's PA Personal Income Tax Guide lists 'Social Security payments' and 'railroad retirement benefits' among income that is not taxable. There is no threshold, no age condition, and no phase-out, and the exemption does not depend on how much other income the taxpayer has — a Pennsylvania retiree with $500,000 of other income still pays nothing on benefits.
On 401(k) and IRA distributions. Exempt, but on conditions — and the conditions are the part every summary drops, so they are the substance of this entry. Pennsylvania does not tax distributions from an 'eligible Pennsylvania retirement plan' paid to a person who has retired after meeting the plan's age or years-of-service conditions. Two separate tests apply depending on the kind of plan. For an employer plan (401(k), 403(b), defined benefit), a distribution is exempt only if both (1) the plan is an eligible Pennsylvania retirement plan and (2) the taxpayer retired after meeting the plan's age conditions or years-of-service conditions. For a non-employer plan such as an IRA, where there are no plan-specific retirement criteria, the Department treats distributions as exempt retirement income 'so long as the taxpayer is not required to pay a penalty for early withdrawal' — for example after retirement, death, disability, separation from service, unforeseeable emergency, or attaining age 59 1/2. The early-distribution edge, stated exactly: distributions from an eligible Pennsylvania retirement plan taken before retirement age or before the years-of-service condition is met are taxable in the year received, but only to the extent they exceed previously taxed contributions, and they are deemed to come from those previously taxed contributions first under the cost recovery method.
Read the full Pennsylvania guide →19 min read · Updated 2026-09-03