The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has made life a little easier for the many companies that will have incurred tax losses in 2001 or 2002. Under a law that President Bush signed in March, companies can carry back “net operating losses” from these years to five previous tax years instead of two.
The IRS has given companies that already filed a return covering 2001 or part of 2002 the chance to apply for the five-year carryback whether or not they asked for a two-year carryback on their 2001 or 2002 return. But companies must apply by October 31, 2002 according to IRS news release IR-2002-66 (available at www.irs.gov).
