For a century, U.S. stocks have returned just over 10% a year before taxes. But what did a taxable investor actually keep?

Quent Capital founder Gregg S. Fisher welcomes Andrew Ang back to The Q Factor to discuss his new investment research paper, Uncle Sam’s Cut: A Century of the Federal Tax Drag on US Equity Returns. Ang reconstructs the experience of a taxable U.S. equity investor from 1926 through 2025, applying the federal tax code in force each year and tracking tax lots, holding periods, dividends, capital gains, and loss carryovers. His headline finding: over long horizons, roughly a third of equity wealth can be absorbed by federal taxes before fees, inflation, or state and local taxes are even considered.

Gregg and Andrew dig into dividend taxation, capital-gains deferral, step-up in basis, turnover, and the design of after-tax portfolios. For Gregg, thinking in after-tax terms is a core part of how he approaches investing—shaped by decades of work at the intersection of markets and tax and by Quent Capital’s origins in a Brooklyn tax practice founded in 1978.

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