Capital Loss Carryover Worksheet shows wrong accumulated carryover amount - help needed

So basically the worksheet already factors in previous years' carryovers? I've been thinking about this all wrong then. What if I didn't claim the full $3,000 in a previous year because my income was too low to offset? Does that unclaimed amount still roll into the next year's calculation?

The Capital Loss Carryover Worksheet accounts for previous carryovers through a chain of annual calculations, not as separate amounts tracked independently. Each year's starting carryover amount includes all previous unclaimed losses. If your income was too low to use the full $3,000 deduction in a previous year, the worksheet would still carry forward the unused portion. For example, if you could only use $1,500 of the $3,000 allowable deduction due to low income, then the remaining $1,500 would be included in your carryover to the next year, along with any excess losses beyond the $3,000 cap. The IRS doesn't penalize you for having insufficient income to use the full deduction.

How exactly does taxr.ai handle multi-year carryovers? Does it create its own worksheet or just analyze what you've already filed? I've got carryovers going back to 2019 and I'm worried I've been doing something wrong this whole time.

Sounds interesting but kinda skeptical... wouldn't TurboTax already handle this calculation correctly? I've never heard of taxr.ai before - is it new? How does it compare to using a real CPA for complex tax situations like carryover losses from multiple years?

It creates a chronological analysis of your capital losses across all your uploaded returns, showing exactly how each year's losses were calculated and carried forward. The system builds a flowchart visualization that makes it easy to spot where things went wrong. For carryovers going back to 2019, it would be particularly helpful since it can identify if you've been consistently applying the calculations correctly over that longer period. The difference between taxr.ai and tax software is that tax software often assumes you're inputting the correct carryover amounts, while taxr.ai actually analyzes your past returns to verify those amounts. TurboTax is great but it doesn't automatically check if you carried the correct amount from returns filed in previous years - especially if you switched tax preparation methods or software between years.

How does this actually work though? I thought the IRS phone lines were completely jammed no matter what. Is this just paying someone to wait on hold for you or do they have some special access?

Yeah right, nothing gets you through to the IRS faster. They're DESIGNED to make you wait. Even tax pros have to wait for hours. Sounds like some service that'll charge you $50 to save you hold time but probably doesn't work any better than calling yourself.

It's basically a system that navigates the IRS phone menus and waits on hold for you. When they get an agent on the line, they connect you immediately. They don't have special access - they're just using technology to handle the painful waiting process so you don't have to sit there listening to hold music for hours. The huge advantage is you don't have to block off your entire day waiting. You just go about your business and they call you when an agent is ready to talk. When I used it, I was actually at the grocery store when they called me back. I stepped outside and had my conversation with the IRS agent who looked up my previous capital loss carryover amounts and verified everything while I was standing in a parking lot.

This explanation makes sense but I'm still confused about one thing - when I'm entering info into TurboTax, does it want me to enter the full carryover amount from my previous return, or just the original capital losses from each specific year? The input screen is confusing me.

When entering information into TurboTax, you should enter the carryover amount shown on your previous return's Capital Loss Carryover Worksheet. You're not re-entering the original capital losses from each specific year - those have already been accounted for in the carryover calculation from previous returns. TurboTax specifically wants the carryover amount that was calculated at the end of your 2024 return, which should represent all your accumulated unused losses. Think of it as a single number that represents your "capital loss balance" that you're bringing forward, not as separate loss events that you need to track individually.

YES! This happened to me when I switched from TurboTax to TaxAct. The Capital Loss Carryover Worksheet looked completely different and I realized I had been entering my carryover amounts wrong for YEARS. I had to go back and look at my old returns and realized I'd been shorting myself by not carrying over short-term and long-term losses separately. Cost me like $900 in refunds I could have had.

Thanks for confirming I'm not crazy! I went back and checked my old returns and realized the issue. H&R Block was combining my short-term and long-term carryover losses into one field, but FreeTaxUSA tracks them separately. Once I separated my carryover amounts correctly (about 60% was short-term, 40% long-term based on my trading history), the worksheet finally showed the correct total amount.