I had a very large capital loss last year that has been carried forward to this year. This year, I would like to apply $3,000 of the carryover loss to my ordinary income, but preserve the remainder of the carryover to use in future years, even though I do have capital gains this year. I would prefer to pay the current tax rates on this year's gains and retain the balance of the carryover until a future year when I will be in a higher tax bracket and the offset will be more beneficial to me.
Can I do this, or do I have to apply last year's capital loss to this year's capital gains in order to get the benefit of the $3,000 offset to my ordinary income?
