A worked example
The state tax no rate table shows
Dana, 62, single, retired in New York with $900,000 in pre-tax accounts and $300,000 in a brokerage account, spending $60,000 a year. No Social Security yet, no other income.
“I want the whole pre-tax balance in a Roth before RMDs start. New York's top rate is nowhere near California's — how much does the state actually take?”
What the projection shows
Nine years of $100,000 conversions come to $212,711 of lifetime tax in present value, and the state's share of it does not behave the way a bracket table suggests. New York excludes the first $20,000 a year of pension and annuity income once you have been 59½ for a full year, and a Roth conversion counts (TSB-M-98(7)I), so a fifth of each early conversion leaves the state's base entirely. Then the brokerage account runs dry, the projection begins funding living costs out of the pre-tax balance on top of the conversion, and state income crosses New York's supplemental-tax threshold. From that year the state charges a supplemental tax on top of its own schedule, and two years behind each conversion the Medicare lookback arrives as well. Neither appears in a rate table, and neither is what the question was about.
What else the projection found
Nothing here was left blank. These follow from the figures above, under the assumptions this example states.
- The $100,000 converted this year lifts income past the top of the 0% band, so $2,664 of gains and dividends that cost nothing are taxed $790 — no bracket changed, so no bracket table shows it.
- $627 of that year's $11,028 state bill is bracket recapture alone, triggered by the $100,000 converted.
- The $100,000 converted in year 4 buys $5,358 of Medicare surcharge in year 6 — a bill from a decision two years old.
The planner arrives with this household already filled in. Change anything — the balances, the ages, the assumptions — and run it as yourself.
A projection under stated assumptions, not financial or tax advice.