PA Tax question regarding capital losses. Details below....?

Question

I must be missing something pretty basic here, because this doesn't make sense to me....

On the PENNSYLVANIA tax form (PA-40) how does one write off capital losses?? I have made up some numbers below:

30,000 Income from working
250 Income from Interest
400 Mutual fund ordinary dividends
400 Mutual fund 'qualified' dividends
1,000 Mutual fund capital gains
-2,000 Individual Stock Capital Losses

This looks so simple but line 9 states "Add only the positive amounts repoted above. DO NOT ADD any losses"

And that's it. After line 9, I see no places to take any other deductions into account. So what happens to the losses? Can I carry them over?...can they reduce my tax liability?...do they just go to zero?...why do they ask for the losses if they don't count them?

Like I said, this has to be simple, but I'm missing something. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks

Answer 1

You're not missing something - PA doesn't allow you to subtract net capital losses, or to net out one class of income against another. So yes, they essentially go to zero - you can't carry them over, and they don't reduce your tax liability. Why do they ask then? I suppose so they can match your return up by computer against your federal totals.