Is that true? Again, I'm not an accountant, so it's an honest question. I was always under the impression that you can write down that $100,000 loss only $3,000/year. So the 2nd year, you'd have $97,000 profit to be taxed on.
In the US, capital losses can be applied to capital gains without any such limit. Perhaps you are thinking of the amount of carried forward cap loss that can be applied to offset ordinary income.
I think you can take up to $3K/year in losses if you have no gains. So if you have 0 gains, you adjust your income down by $3K. If you have 10K in gains, you can negate out that 10K. That's my early morning understanding of it though.
Yes, it's generally true. Capital losses can generally be used to offset subsequent capital gains, or up to $3000 of ordinary income a year.