Capital Gains Statement Calculator

Short-term loss → ANY capital gain (s.70(2)). Long-term loss → LONG-TERM gains only (s.70(3)). Crypto loss → nothing at all (s.115BBH(2)).

Capital gains do not compute asset by asset and then add up, which is why a year of seven disposals cannot be answered by running seven single-asset calculators. They pool, and the pooling rules are asymmetric. Section 70(2) allows a short-term capital loss to be set off against income under the head capital gains generally, so it may reduce a long-term gain as readily as a short-term one. Section 70(3) allows a long-term capital loss to be set off only against a long-term capital gain, so it can never touch a short-term gain however large that gain is and however plainly it is sitting in the same year. The consequence is that two investors with identical total profit pay different tax depending only on which of their holdings was the one that lost money, and that difference is invisible on any single-asset page. Which gain a given loss is applied to is not dictated anywhere in section 70 — the taxpayer chooses, and the choice is worth the rate difference between the pools. A short-term loss applied to a short-term listed equity gain saves 20% under section 111A; applied to a long-term gain it saves 12.5% under section 112 or 112A; applied to a debt fund or other slab-charged gain it saves the full slab rate, which at 30% is the most valuable home available to it. The expensive error is subtler than any of those: long-term equity gain up to ₹1,25,000 in the year is already exempt under section 112A, so a loss set off against that slice saves nothing whatsoever while being consumed, when it would otherwise have carried forward for eight years. That exemption is annual and aggregate rather than per transaction, so five separate ₹1 lakh long-term equity gains total ₹5 lakh with only ₹1.25 lakh of it free. Section 50AA sits across the classification: units of a specified mutual fund bought on or after 1 April 2023 are deemed short-term however long they are held, so a debt fund of nine years' standing is charged at slab alongside one of nine weeks. Virtual digital assets are sealed off from the entire structure by section 115BBH(2), the harshest provision in the area — a crypto loss cannot be set off against other income, cannot be set off against a gain on another crypto asset, and cannot be carried forward, so a year that gained ₹5 lakh on one coin and lost ₹5 lakh on another made nothing and still owes 30% of the gain. The wall runs both ways: no other loss may be applied against a crypto gain either. Whatever remains unrelieved carries forward eight assessment years under section 74, with a carried long-term loss still confined to long-term gains in each of those years, and no capital loss of either kind ever reaching salary, business or interest income because section 71(3) confines it to capital gains for its whole life. Finally, section 80 read with section 139(3) forfeits the carry forward altogether where the return was not filed by the due date. The set-off made within the current year survives a late filing; the eight years of future relief do not.