In many instances, companies are allowed to carry forward losses to future years. Doing so creates a so-called "tax umbrella." You know...that thing you carry everywhere in case the weather turns against you (the tax weather, in this case).
Corporations are only taxed on their profits. So if a company posts a loss for the year, it doesn't owe any taxes. What's more, the firm can often carry forward the losses and apply them to future years.
You run Jive Turkey, a restaurant chain that is themed for both Thanksgiving and the 1970s (you can get served stuffing and cranberry sauce by a waiter dressed like David Cassidy). In 2018, it posted a loss of $1 million. In 2019, it had a profit of $3 million. The loss in the previous year becomes a tax umbrella for its 2019 results. It can carry forward that loss, making its taxable income in 2019 only $2 million (the $3 million minus the $1 million loss from the previous year).
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is Tax Basis?8 Views
Finance allah shmoop What is tax basis Well your basis
is your cost Your costs for assessing how much you
owe when the tax man coming you bought a thousand
shares of whatever dot com at twelve bucks a share
in its eye po and huzzah Three years later the
stock is at thirty You decide whatever dot com is
now passe because a kardashians said so it'll be over
taken by whenever dot com and you want to sell
So you dio and you live in a thirty percent
marginal tax blue state And that is your federal tax
rates in twenty percent But then you add in ten
percent for state taxes and whatever's left for obamacare and
you pay about thirty percent tax on your gains Well
you paid twelve grand to buy the stock and after
the sale you took in thirty grand when you sold
it for a gain of eighteen thousand dollars Your tax
basis on those shares is twelve grand so you pay
thirty percent tax on the eighteen grand of gain or
fifty four hundred dollars to net from the sale of
thirty thousand dollars worth of stock How much Yeah twenty
Four thousand six hundred dollars He fancy math Had you
just gotten those shares free I'ii they were gifted to
you and you had no tax basis or a tax
basis of zero dollars a share Well then your gain
would have been from zero to thirty grand or a
gain of thirty thousand dollars to then be taxed at
thirty percent or nine grand in taxes to net just
twenty one thousand dollars after the sale So having ah
high tax basis or at least being able teo point
toe one saves you money when the tax man coming
and well that's pretty much it alright he's gone Now
you can all come out Come on it's Okay it's 00:01:53.698 --> [endTime] safe
Up Next
What is a tax deduction? Tax deductions decrease the amount of taxable income reported so that less tax is owed. For everyday civilians, these dedu...
What is tax loss carry-forward? We promise it's a real thing, not just a bunch of words strung together.