If you hold embedded gains spread across taxable, tax-deferred, and Roth accounts, this gap is yours. Two identical portfolios. Same markets, same pre-tax return. The only difference is how the tax is managed, where each holding sits, how losses are used, how gains and withdrawals are timed. Over a lifetime, that difference compounds into what a household actually keeps.
How to read thisThe state & federal rates come from current tax code; the coordination figure is an illustrative model of what disciplined tax management has recovered over time, a diagnostic, not a forecast, and not a robo-advisor's black box.
The After-Tax Lab reads a balance sheet the way a coordinator does — looking for the gaps a market return never shows. The ones it surfaces most often:
Each finding becomes a specific, owned action — written down, not advised in passing. The review produces:
Nothing about the investments changed. Only the coordination did.
Identical holdings and identical pre-tax return; the paths differ only in implementation, asset location, lot selection, harvesting cadence, and withdrawal order, modeled as an illustrative +3.7–4.7%/yr kept after tax, federal to a high-tax state. Values compound from $1,000,000 of realized gains.
Source: Driftwood After-Tax Lab, modeled, hypothetical, illustrative. Not a forecast and not advice; your figure depends on bracket, basis, and holdings.
The figure above is the argument. The After-Tax Lab is that argument, computed on your own balance sheet, your holdings, basis, bracket, and state, estimating the after-tax return, the asset-location benefit, the value of harvesting, and the order in which accounts should be drawn. It is prepared privately and reviewed with you; it is not a form to fill out.
The figure above is illustrative and deliberately conservative, it counts only the portfolio layer of coordination. The Coordination Review computes it on your actual holdings, and a short call is where we'd look at the estate, gifting, and residency coordination this exhibit leaves at zero. The Tax Atlas goes state by state, if you want to see how yours compares first.
The difference between the two lines is not a market call. It is a set of decisions made deliberately, held for decades. See it on your own numbers.