Delay Taxes, Increase Your Wealth; A Look At Berkshire: Tweedy Browne

A study from Tweedy Browne titled “Investing For Higher After-Tax Returns: Lessons for Tax-Paying Investors from Warren Buffett, Index Funds, the Best Performing Stocks over an 18-year Period, and Our Own Experience” contains a section that highlights how delaying taxes as long as possible may dramatically increase the investor’s wealth at any given pre-tax rate of return.

Warren’s example

This example is taken from the 1993 Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B) annual report and depicts starkly how the net wealth of an investor is affected by (a) active buying/selling of investments, and payment of tax thereon, compared to (b) just sitting on the investment for an extended period of time, and paying tax just once.

Here’s the math...