What West 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.
West Virginia guide
On the ordinary retirement profile — $34,000 of Social Security and $61,000 of plan distributions — West Virginia takes $1,571 a year in state income tax.
That is the number people compare, and it is the smallest of three. Property tax adds about $1,508 on the state's $274,142 median home, and insurance another $2,465. The three together come to $5,544, placing West Virginia 5th of 50.
A note before you start. This is general education, not tax advice. Every West 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 for tax year 2026 — the phase-out is complete. West Virginia's decreasing modification for Social Security benefits reached 100% in tax year 2026, having run 35% in 2024 and 65% in 2025 for filers above the income thresholds. The structure is worth understanding because it explains why sources written before 2026 look contradictory: taxpayers with federal adjusted gross income of $50,000 or less (single) or $100,000 or less (joint) have received a 100% decreasing modification since tax year 2022, so lower-income West Virginia retirees have not paid tax on benefits for years. It was only filers above those thresholds who were phased in at 35%, then 65%, and now 100%. As of 2026 the threshold no longer changes the answer for anyone: benefits included in federal AGI are fully subtracted regardless of income. Recorded as 'exempt' rather than 'taxed-above-threshold' for exactly that reason — the thresholds are now vestigial.
Read the full West Virginia guide →19 min read · Updated 2026-09-03