when to realize and claim a capital loss carryover
to begin offsetting within the same tax year you must subtract any capital losses from any capital gains you have in the year in question accordingly if you have both capital gains and losses in a given year you should use the losses to reduce or completely wipe out your taxable capital gains for that year if your capital losses for the year are greater than your capital profits you can carry the unused losses forward to subsequent tax years in those subsequent years you can claim a capital loss carryover when you have capital losses that exceed your capital gains in that given tax year in general you can carry capital losses forward indefinitely either until you use them all up or until they run out carryovers of capital losses have no time limit so you can use them to offset capital gains or as a deduction against ordinary income in subsequent tax years until they are exhausted keep in mind there may be restrictions on how much of a loss you can claim in a given tax year even though you can carry over capital losses beyond these limits any excess losses may be carried over to subsequent years 