A company paying a cost of $50 to produce widgets for 1 year (and don't sell any that year), then selling all the widgets on the 2nd year for a profit of $100, can claim that they made a loss of $50 in the previous year, and therefore only have $50 that's taxable.

A person who works for 1 year for $100 income, then stops working the 2nd year (and live off their income from the 1st year), must pay their taxes at the $100 rate. If they are allowed the same 'carry forward' as a corp, they should pay at the tax rate of $50 for both years, rather than at $100 for the first year, and $0 at the 2nd year. And yet, this isn't allowed for a person. Of course, you could claim that the gov't can't tell that the first $100 is supposed to be 'averaged out' in the future. So would the situation be any different if you lived off savings for the first year, and replenished them in the 2nd year? I don't think this is any different.