Carry forward losses belong to each individual not a couple. While alive, filing a joint return allows the losses to offset the gains regardless of who they belong to. But once a surviving spouse files alone, the capital loss carry forward belonging to the deceased spouse is no longer available. In practice, I suspect many do not appropriately reduce the carry forward losses upon the death of a spouse and the IRS is not going to pick up on that in the ordinary course.I assume you and your wife file your tax returns as married filing jointly. If so, then when the first of you dies (let’s say you for arguments sake) , then your wife will will retain the loss until her death. At that point it will expire.
Statistics: Posted by Katietsu — Fri Apr 12, 2024 3:10 am — Replies 23 — Views 2726