What Virginia 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.
Virginia guide
On the ordinary retirement profile — $34,000 of Social Security and $61,000 of plan distributions — Virginia takes $2,693 a year in state income tax.
That is the number people compare, and it is the smallest of three. Property tax adds about $3,355 on the state's $453,389 median home, and insurance another $2,265. The three together come to $8,313, placing Virginia 30th of 50.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Every Virginia 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. Fully exempt, with no income threshold, no phase-out, and no age condition. Va. Code 58.1-322.02(3) subtracts benefits received under Title II of the Social Security Act and other benefits subject to federal income taxation solely pursuant to IRC section 86. The same definition is reused elsewhere in the Virginia code in a way that matters: 'adjusted federal adjusted gross income', the measure used to phase out the age deduction, is federal AGI minus those Social Security benefits — so Social Security is not merely untaxed, it also does not count against a retiree's age deduction.
On 401(k) and IRA distributions. Read this as an age deduction, not a retirement-income exclusion. Virginia has no subtraction aimed at 401(k), 403(b), or IRA distributions as such — those are fully included in Virginia taxable income. What older filers get instead is the general age deduction under Va. Code 58.1-322.03(5): $12,000 per qualifying individual, which reduces Virginia adjusted gross income from whatever source, retirement or otherwise. Two tracks. (1) Individuals born on or before January 1, 1939 get the full $12,000 with NO income test at all.
Read the full Virginia guide →17 min read · Updated 2026-09-03