Updated September 1, 2026. Quick answer: On one deliberately uniform benchmark — a single filer with exactly $120,000 of 2025 state taxable income in each jurisdiction, before credits — Mississippi’s base result is about $1,156 higher than Pennsylvania’s. This is a rate-schedule comparison, not a claim about what a particular retiree will owe.
At $120,000 of state taxable income: Mississippi is $1,156 higher
- Pennsylvania
- 3.07% × $120,000 = $3,684.00, rounded to $3,684.
- Mississippi
- 4.4% × ($120,000 − $10,000) = $4,840.00, rounded to $4,840.
- Destination minus origin
- $4,840.00 − $3,684.00 = $1,156.00; the absolute whole-dollar gap is $1,156.
The input is state taxable income, not gross income, adjusted gross income, a pension, or an IRA withdrawal. State adjustments determine that input before these published rate formulas are applied. This benchmark intentionally excludes credits and every tax outside the basic individual-income-tax calculation, so higher describes only this controlled comparison.
The archived directional-flow row for Pennsylvania to Mississippi
In Census Table T13, workbook row 1343 places Mississippi in the current-residence column and Pennsylvania in the residence-one-year-ago column. Its 2024 estimate is 1,589, with a margin of error of ±1,103; the point estimate exceeds that margin.
The archived IRS outflow row for the same direction reports n1=297, n2=527, and AGI=17,427 in the file’s own fields. We leave those field names intact instead of relabeling them as retirees.
Neither archived directional row contains a retirement-status field. They support the corridor direction; they do not establish retiree demand, a retirement move count, or a tax saving.
Price the move against the rest of your money
A state-to-state comparison shows you which taxes change, not what to do about the accounts, the house and the timing sitting behind them, and an adviser can look at those together before a move is set in motion.
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How to use this comparison without turning it into a forecast
First determine the state taxable-income input under each jurisdiction’s return. Then apply the relevant schedule, and only then account for credits or taxes outside this benchmark. If the two taxable-income inputs differ, the gap will differ too.
- Use the same $120,000 input only to reproduce this page’s arithmetic.
- Do not read $1,156 as a household saving or moving recommendation; it is the absolute difference between two controlled base-tax calculations.
- Recheck the official schedules for the filing year you are actually comparing.
Keep the pair, origin, and destination owners separate
This leaf owns only the exact Pennsylvania-to-Mississippi comparison. Use the Pennsylvania origin hub for other destinations, the Mississippi destination hub for other origins, or the retirement-tax relocation hub to start over.
Primary sources used for the benchmark
- Pennsylvania 2025 PA-40 instructions, tax rate.
- Mississippi Department of Revenue tax-rate table for 2025-2027.
- U.S. Census Bureau 2024 State-to-State Migration Table T13.
- IRS Statistics of Income state-to-state outflow file, filing years 2022-2023.
Methodology: Clear Money Guide applied the two published 2025 base-tax formulas to one exact $120,000 state-taxable-income input, retained the unrounded results, and rounded only the displayed whole-dollar amounts. This is general information, not personalized tax, legal, or financial advice.