What is the Capital Loss Carryover?

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
February 24, 2021
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I have been using Turbo Tax for years and this year it populated my Income and Expenses with a Capital Loss Carryover from my 2019 tax returns. I don't remember any of this and can't figure out where these numbers came from. What's the best way to figure out if these numbers are correct or not?

TurboTax Self Employed Online

JohnW152

You can deduct up to $3,000 in capital losses on your return in one year ($1,500 if married filing separately). Any losses over that amount can be deducted on future returns as a capital loss carryover, until your loss is used up.

To see where this came from, look on last year's Schedule D -- specifically lines 16 and 21.

If your line 16 loss amount is higher than the amount shown on line 21 (pretend they're both positive numbers), you'll get a capital loss carryover on this year's return.

If you transferred data from last year's TurboTax return, your carryovers will already be populated.

VolvoGirl

Employee

You need to look at your 2019 Schedule D to calculate how much was carried over to 2020.

Schedule D doesn't actually show the carryover amount. To find your Capital Loss Carryover amount you need to look at your return schedule D page 2. Line 16 will be your total loss and line 21 should be a max loss of 3,000. The difference between line 16 and 21 is the carryover loss.

If you used the desktop version or have the complete pdf of your last year's return you might have the Capital Loss CO (carryover) worksheet that will tell you the amount.

In the Online version you have to save your return with all the worksheet as a pdf file to your computer to see the Capital Loss carry over worksheet. There might be 2. There is a Capital Loss Carryover Worksheet showing the carryover from the prior year and the current amounts. Then there is also the Capital Loss Carry Forward worksheet showing the amount transferring over to next year.