it depends on your return and how you look at things. an NOL would reduce taxable income from all other sources in the following year (assuming you made the election to carry it forward) thus reducing your tax bill. a passive loss can only be used against passive income unless the activity is disposed of. so a PAL from an activity that still exists could be carried over for an unlimited amount of years and thus producing no tax benefit. so do you prefer to benefit currently or possibly in a decade? some taxpayers even die without ever being able to use the PAL.
