Sorry, Blue Card, I may be misreading your advice, but not sure this is correct?
I thought you could only apply a capital loss against a capital gain. The way I read your reply (as I said, it could just be me), you are suggesting a loss can be taken against income (eg wage/dividend etc)? Perhaps this is the case for day traders, or people who trade for a living, but for the long-term investor type....???
As an example (following on from your $1000). Say KrisK is a long-term investor (not a day trader who buys and sells shares for a living), if he has sold some shares for a $3,000 gain, then sells the shares he is currently talking about for a $1000 loss, then overall he has a $2000 capital gain to declare on his tax return. If he has the shares for over a year, he has to declare half his gain, so pays tax at his maginal rate on half the $2000 (ie tax on $1000). At a 30% tax bracket, he pays an extra $300 in tax.
However, with that same $1000 loss from his current shares, if he has had no other capital gain to offset it against, he has a straight $1000 loss, that he can't do anything with this year. (ie, dosn't affect the amount of tax he pays in the current financial year - won't get back $300 or any other amount based just on the share sale). But he can carry that loss forward until he makes a capital gain.
Hope this makes sense.
Lily
