I've read somewhere that there are actually retirees in Texas who are moving to California for the lower taxes. Its true that California has the highest state i

I've read somewhere that there are actually retirees in Texas who are moving to California for the lower taxes. Its true that California has the highest state income tax and Texas has no income tax, but for retirees whose income is mostly social security plus some IRA/401k withdrawals and who don't have much debt there is a good chance their California income tax will be quite low or even zero. Social security is not taxed by California, so their only state income tax will be on those retirement account withdrawals. For a married couple the standard deduction in California is nearly $11k and the lowest tax bracket is 1% on the first ~$21k over that. That means they could take up to ~$11k/year out of their retirements accounts with no state tax, and up ~$32k/year out of their IRA/401k with that tax being less than ~$210. I did some checking on Redfin and Zillow to check house prices and property taxes. Same sized houses and lots in California are more expensive than in Texas, so it looks like if your sold your house in Texas and moved to California and put all the money from the house sale into your new house you would have to downsize. A 2000 sq ft house on Texas might become a 1600 sq ft house in California, which would be acceptable to a lot of people. If that is acceptable then it appeared that moving to California could indeed lower your taxes.