For how many years can you carry over a net stock/options loss to offset any future gains in future years?

Question

For example if I lost $10,000 in stocks/options trading in 2006, for how long can I use that loss to deduct it from future tax years. Is there a limitations in the number of years to deduct that loss? If I finally make a capital gains (stock/options) of $10,000 in 2015, can I then deduct that loss from 2006.

Answer 1

You can carry over a capital loss for as long as it takes to use it up. If you have a year though when you don't have $3000 in ordinary income to offset it against, you must still reduce the carryover by $3000 for that year.

You don't have to wait to use it until you have capital gains - you can use $3000 of it a year to offset ordinary income. So if you had a $10K carryover in 2006 and no capital gains or losses then until 2015, you'd use $3K of your carryover in 2007, 2008 and 2009, and the last $1000 in 2010.

Answer 2

If you had a $10,000 net capital loss in 2006, you can deduct $3,000 on your 2006 tax return.

The remaining $7,000 can be carried forward until it is used up. Since you can deduct $3,000 per year without any offsetting gains, you would have a maximum of three years to deduct your loss and use it up (you cannot skip years).

If you had gains in 2007 that were $7,000 or more, you could deduct all of the carryover loss.