As Hurricane stated, then the âcapital loss carryoverâ carries forward indefinitely until you do have income to offset. If you are married filling jointly your $3k per year limit will also offset your wifeâs income if she has any. You canât get a refund for previously paid taxes based on capital losses, the only way to do that it declare mark to market accounting, which is complicated and you would need the help of a professional, and since you are a futures trader you would give up preferential tax treatment so you would not want to do that. Basically if you have no income from you or your wife the loss will not do you any good until you have a year with income or capital gains for your loss to offset.Quote from artn:
what if there is zero income on my tax return?
Quote from oldtime:
but you are asking the right questions. I pissed away a lot of money because I never understood the tax consequences of what I was doing. And it's not as simple as just having a professional prepare for you. Understanding taxes is just as important as understanding commissions and spreads.
there are times when (depending on what you have on and your style of trading) that it may be better to just pay the late fine than to give them all your dry powder at the end of a quarter.
there are times (not in futures but in stocks) when it may be better just to sell today and pay the higher short term cap gains than to ride it out for a week just to get a tax break,
it's kind of hard to find trader specific tax advice for free. You'd be surprised how much you can pick up spending a lazy Sunday on the IRS website. Especially since you may be willing to take some risks a professional tax accountant would never condone.
yes, it is crazy, just like you say, about every year at this time.Quote from BSAM:
Ain't it crazy?
I read these discussions here every year.
Solution: Consumption tax or flat tax.
Quote from oldtime:
We could elimintae about 70,000 pages of tax code by simply giving corporations a free ride and not taxing any money until it is passed to an individual. After all, in the words of our great leader, "Corporations are people too my friend" and apparently that is the only reason they are taxed.
maybe so, but I don't like forcing anybody to do anything.Quote from Handle123:
Do you feel if we had no corporate tax, all the jobs we have lost to foreign countries would come back?
China would have a fit if that came to pass. I liked Trump's idea of 25% surcharge on foreign made goods, but I think it should be 200%, that force corps to make factories here again.