How can taxes be shifted backward?

You can either income average over multiple years ( which is best utilized if you have large swings in income from consecutive years.) or you can apply Net Operating Losses forward or backward with the Form 1065 to reduce your taxes in a certain year. You can only do this if you had a net operating loss in one or more years.

Sorry, income averaging hasn't been available for about 20 years.

You may be confused with how Net Operating Losses work and obviously, they would NOT be available to an individual.