california capital loss carry forward question not answered and why doesn't Turbo tax do the transferring automatically

[oaklander]

Hello.  I've been looking at the California capital loss carry forward issue and there is one unanswered question: which is why do we need to use a prior year carry forward loss for this year's? And better question, since we have used Turbo tax for many years, why doesn't Turbo tax just port over the data rather than having us find and manually enter it?  Sounds like a major bug since Turbo tax ports over lots of other prior year data.

[MarilynG1]

Yes, if you have a Capital Loss Carryover from last year, you need to use it every year until it's used up.  You can't choose which tax years to apply your carryover to. Carryovers from this year's return must be applied to next year's, etc. However, although you need to report it, if you don't need it this year, the amount will carry over intact to next year. 

Some users report that their carryover loss transferred from their Federal to their State return properly, while others needed to enter it in their state interview. The reason for this is not apparent; some suggest it's from not transferring immediately on starting a new return, or skipping around in the return before transferring.  Anyway, it's definitely a good idea to keep track of your losses personally.

Here's more discussion on Capital Loss Carryovers and What is a Capital Loss Carryover?

@oaklander