What South Carolina 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.
South Carolina guide
On the ordinary retirement profile — $34,000 of Social Security and $61,000 of plan distributions — South Carolina takes $1,066 a year in state income tax.
That is the number people compare, and it is the smallest of three. Property tax adds about $1,800 on the state's $359,900 median home, and insurance another $2,250. The three together come to $5,116, placing South Carolina 3rd of 50.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Every South Carolina 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. South Carolina does not tax Social Security or Railroad Retirement benefits. Benefits arrive through federal taxable income and are subtracted in arriving at South Carolina taxable income, with no income threshold, no age condition, and no phase-out. Note the interaction with SCIAD: because Social Security is subtracted for South Carolina purposes but is still in federal AGI, and the SCIAD phase-out is tested on federal AGI, a retiree's Social Security can push them out of the SCIAD range even though the benefits themselves are untaxed.
On 401(k) and IRA distributions. Two different deductions at two different ages, and collapsing them is the standard error. Under S.C. Code Section 12-6-1170(A) the original owner of a qualified retirement account may deduct up to $3,000 of retirement income per year through age 64, rising to up to $10,000 per year at age 65 and thereafter. The deduction is per taxpayer, which is why married-joint reads $20,000 — but only where each spouse has their own qualified retirement income; it is not a joint allowance. 'Retirement income' is defined broadly as otherwise taxable income not subject to a penalty for premature distribution received from plans defined in IRC sections 401, 403, 408 and 457, plus all public employee retirement plans of federal, state and local governments including military retirement — so an early withdrawal that carries a federal penalty is outside the definition entirely and gets nothing. A surviving spouse may claim the deduction for retirement income attributable to a deceased spouse in the same manner it would have applied to the deceased, in addition to the deduction for their own retirement income.
Read the full South Carolina guide →18 min read · Updated 2026-09-03