is the after tax real rate of return better than the nominal rate of return 
your after tax real rate of return will give you the actual benefit of the investment and whether it is sufficient to sustain your standard of living in the future because it takes into account your fees tax rate and inflation both figures are useful tools to analyze an investment s performance if you are comparing two investments it would be important to use the same figure for both my nominal rate of return is 12 inflation is 8 5 and my applicable tax rate is 15 what is my after tax real rate of return your after tax real rate of return is calculated by first figuring your after tax pre inflation rate of return which is calculated as nominal return 1 tax rate that would be 0 12 1 0 15 0 102 10 2 to calculate the after tax real rate of return divide 1 plus the figure above by 1 plus the inflation rate that would be 1 0 102 1 0 085 1 1 0157 1 0 0157 1 57 after tax real rate of return as you can see the high inflation rate has a substantial impact on the after tax real rate of return for your investment the bottom line