<prompt> Human: Does anyone know any legal way to move ones tax obligation over a different time frame than a year. Lets say a person is trading regularly. Buys and sells happening several times per week with the whole stack. And lets say that person came out ahead 300,000 in 2017, but is down 250,000 in 2018. So over the course of 2 years, the trader is only up 50,000... but the taxes are due on 300,000 short term capital gains profit. Is there any technique of delaying or combining years so that they can say, from this year to that year, my total gains were x, so Ill pay a total tax on that amount.  <response>: As a person, no. If you were incorporated there is carry-forward and carry-back losses.As a person you have to pay your taxes for 2017 and then you will have a carryover loss for 2019 and beyond. 