Some Tax related questions

[Chris Luksha]

Ok so I just listened to Brandon Hall's podcast on show 196 and it was amazing.  Go listen to it. I have a ton of questions from it but here are one or two.

1. What is a passive loss?  

2. There was a section about S Corp declarations and making use of the status proactively if you hit a predetermined income threshold. I was wondering if it was possible to convert my sole prop to an scorp llc and start taking advantage of tax benefits from the beginning of the year? 

3. As a carpenter / GC, can I call myself a real estate professional if I am working on flipping homes primarily? Of course, not knowing what a passive loss is, I'm not sure why it would matter to me :)

Blessings all,

Chris