At RetireMove, our mission is to bring absolute clarity to your retirement planning. We believe that finding the right place to retire shouldn't require a degree in tax law or hours spent digging through bureaucratic websites. So we do the digging — and then we show you exactly where we dug.
How we calculate your tax burden
State tax codes are incredibly complex, especially for retirees. A state might boast “no income tax” but make up for it with massive property taxes. We calculate your total tax footprint by breaking your finances into three distinct categories:
Retirement income nuance
We don't just lump your money together. State laws treat different income streams differently. Our calculation engine applies specific state rules to your Social Security, 401(k)/IRA withdrawals, pensions, and part-time income. If a state exempts Social Security (as most do) or offers a specific deduction for pensions, our system automatically factors that in.
Two limits worth stating plainly. We apply a single representative income tax rate per state rather than graduated brackets, so a figure is an estimate of the effective burden and not a return. And age and filing status are modelled today in only four states — Colorado, Georgia, New Jersey and Rhode Island. For every other state we apply the simplified model, and the state card on the calculator says so.
New Jersey in detail: the Pension and Retirement Income Exclusion requires age 62 or older and is tiered on New Jersey gross income. At $100,000 or less it is $100,000 filing jointly ($75,000 single); from $100,001 to $125,000 it is 50% of gross income (37.5% single); from $125,001 to $150,000 it is 25% (18.75% single); and above $150,000 it is zero. That last step is a cliff, not a phase-out — one dollar over the line removes the whole exclusion. Social Security is not part of New Jersey gross income, but the test can include items this calculator does not collect, so the cliff may bite sooner than we show. Rule as described by the New Jersey Division of Taxation, Bulletin GIT-1&2.
The “home swap” real estate formula
Property taxes are determined locally, not at the state level. When you compare a move — for example, from Essex County, New Jersey, to Sussex County, Delaware — we apply the specific effective county property tax rate to your target home value to give you an accurate, localized estimate of your annual carrying costs.
Cost of living & sales tax
Everyday spending matters. We take your estimated annual taxable spending and apply a combined rate that factors in both the state-level sales tax and the average local municipal surcharges.
Regional Price Parities (real purchasing power)
Tax savings only tell half the story — a dollar buys more in some states than others. We use the Bureau of Economic Analysis' Regional Price Parities at the state level (2024 reference year, where the US average = 100) to translate your nominal tax savings into a real annual benefit.
We deliberately exclude housing from this adjustment. Housing is already modeled elsewhere in RetireMove through your home value, the county effective property tax rate, and average homeowners insurance premiums — including it again in the cost-of-living index would double-count the single largest variable in a move.
Instead, we build a non-housing index weighted 45% goods and 55% non-housing services. That split is an approximation of typical non-housing consumption, not a household-specific budget. The ratio between your destination and origin index is applied to the annual taxable spending figure you enter, so the adjustment moves live with your own numbers — and correctly reduces your benefit when the destination is more expensive.
Every dimension, named by source
A county profile on RetireMove pulls together five kinds of fact — cost, climate, health care, culture and family proximity. None of them is a score we invented. Each one is a number we copied from a named public dataset, and each one carries a one-line note about what it does and does not tell you. Here they are.
Cost — property tax
- Source
- Median real estate taxes paid ÷ median home value, by county
- Publisher
- U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS)
- Vintage
- Latest 5-year ACS estimates
- Licence
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
This is the rate actually paid on the median home in a county — the median tax bill divided by the median home value. It is not the headline millage rate, and it does not include any senior or homestead exemption you may personally qualify for. Where we don't hold a county's own figure, we show the state average and say so plainly rather than invent a number.
Cost — income, sales & insurance
- Source
- State income tax rules, combined state + local sales tax rates, homeowners insurance premiums
- Publisher
- State Departments of Revenue; the Tax Foundation; insurers' filed rates
- Vintage
- Refreshed annually from published codes and legislative updates
- Licence
- Public (government codes); Tax Foundation data used under their terms
These drive the moving-cost calculator on the home page, where you put your own income and home value in. We apply a single representative income tax rate per state rather than graduated brackets, so the result is an estimate of the effective burden, not a filed tax return.
Cost — Regional Price Parities
- Source
- State-level Regional Price Parities (RPP)
- Publisher
- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
- Vintage
- 2024 reference year (US average = 100)
- Licence
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
RPP tells you how far a dollar goes in one state versus another. We use a non-housing slice of it (goods and services only) so we don't double-count housing, which is already in your property tax and insurance lines. It is a state-level average, not a county-specific price.
Climate
- Source
- County climate normals — average January low, July high, annual temperature, precipitation, heating and cooling degree days
- Publisher
- NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (nClimDiv)
- Vintage
- 1991–2020 U.S. Climate Normals
- Licence
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
These are 30-year averages, not a forecast and not last year's weather. They describe the typical year, which is the right yardstick for “what will winter feel like.” The dataset covers the 50 states and DC only — Puerto Rico's municipios sit outside it, so those profiles ship without a climate panel and say why.
Health care
- Source
- Nearest emergency room, nearest teaching hospital, primary-care doctors per 100,000, Health Professional Shortage Area designation, Medicare Advantage penetration
- Publisher
- HRSA Area Health Resources File (AHRF) 2024–25; CMS Hospital General Information; CMS Provider of Services file; CMS HCAHPS; CMS Medicare Monthly Enrollment
- Vintage
- 2024–25 reporting cycles
- Licence
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
Distances are straight-line from the county's population centre to each hospital — road travel is always longer. The primary-care count is doctors per 100,000 residents, and the physicians are counted where they practise, not where their patients live, so a county that draws patients from neighbours can look better staffed than it is. Medicare Advantage share is shown only when you tell us you are 65 or older.
Culture
- Source
- Named venues (theatres, museums, promoters, historic sites); Census County Business Patterns counts; National Register of Historic Places listings; arts nonprofit counts and revenue
- Publisher
- Overture Maps Foundation (venues); U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns (counts); National Park Service NRHP (historic listings); National Center for Charitable Statistics at the Urban Institute (nonprofits)
- Vintage
- Overture nightly refresh; CBP 2023; NRHP current; NCCS Unified BMF
- Licence
- Overture Maps: CDLA-Permissive-2.0. CBP & NRHP: public domain. NCCS: ODC-BY 1.0.
Culture is shown as counts and named venues, never as a score. A county with one much-loved theatre can be a better fit than one with a dozen you would never visit. The Census withholds exact business counts below three to protect confidentiality — when that happens we show “fewer than 3” rather than guessing at a number. The “in and around” venue count includes adjacent counties, and is labelled as such.
Family proximity
- Source
- Straight-line (great-circle) distance from the destination county centre to your family's ZIP code; nearest commercial airport and its nonstop destination count
- Publisher
- U.S. Census ZCTA gazetteer (ZIP centroids); OurAirports (airport locations); Bureau of Transportation Statistics T-100 (nonstop destinations); Census county adjacency file
- Vintage
- ZCTA 2020; OurAirports nightly; BTS most recent reporting month
- Licence
- All public domain (U.S. government and OurAirports public domain)
The family distance is a straight-line distance, as the crow flies — not a driving distance and not a drive time. Real roads are always longer. It is genuinely useful for deciding whether a move makes visits a day trip or a plane ride, and it is only wrong if we let you think it is a drive time. The family ZIP you enter lives only in the page address and is never stored, logged, or sent anywhere — it is a third party's location, not ours to keep.
The county spine
- Source
- County boundaries, FIPS codes, populations and adjacency
- Publisher
- U.S. Census Bureau (2025 County Gazetteer)
- Vintage
- 2025
- Licence
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
Every dimension above is keyed to a five-digit county FIPS code, so the spine they hang on is the Census' own county list. A county gets a profile when we hold at least one dimension for it; where a dimension is missing we name the gap and fall back to a state figure only for property tax, never silently.
The rules we follow when data is missing
A gap names itself
If we don't hold a county's property tax figure, the panel says so — “We don't have county property tax for Alpine County. The California average is shown instead.” Never a blank, never a dash, never a silent zero.
Suppressed data says suppressed
The Census County Business Patterns withholds exact business counts below three to protect the confidentiality of individual firms. When that rule bites, we show “fewer than 3” rather than guessing at a number. This is a public suppression rule, not a limitation of our tool.
Out-of-scope says out of scope
Puerto Rico's municipios have health-care and culture data but sit outside NOAA's nClimDiv coverage. Their profiles ship without a climate panel and say why, rather than substituting a national or nearby-state figure.
Physicians are counted where they practise
The primary-care count is doctors per 100,000 residents, located where they practise — not where their patients live. A county that draws patients from its neighbours can look better staffed than it really is. Treat the number as a signal of supply, not a guarantee of an appointment.
Straight-line, never drive time
We do not host a routing engine, so we never claim a drive time. Family distance is great-circle miles, clearly labelled “straight-line (as the crow flies),” and the family location itself is computed in your browser and never stored.
A note on estimates and financial advice
RetireMove is a powerful modeling tool designed to give you a clear, directional understanding of your relocation options. However, it is an educational aggregator, not a substitute for a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).
Because individual tax situations involve unique deductions, local municipal assessments, and changing legislation, the numbers provided are estimates. We strongly recommend using your RetireMove dashboard as a foundational guide to share with your personal financial advisor or tax professional before making a final move.