Financial Year in India and Around the World

CA Amitav Das

In India Financial year comes to an end on 31st March. For all Tax payer, Business persons, Business Entity, Bank and for Professional like CA, CWA, CS this 31^st March year ending plays a vital role as the Accounting or Financial year comes to an end.

It’s not like the Calendar Year, where all people are in the mood of enjoyment. During March 31^st all professional are busy with Month end and Year End Activities.

(Year End Activities like : Closing of books of account , Advance Tax Payment, Computation of Tax, Service Tax Dues payment, Investments to Save Tax as per the Tax Las Provision, TDS Calculation and payment, Counting of Physical Inventory and verifying with books, Confirmation of Customer and Vendor Outstanding balance., Computation of Capital Gain and losses, Repayment of Housing loan, Tax Planning, Manage Professional Income & Expenses, Deposit in FD, PPF, LIC as per the Income Tax Provision to save tax, Filing of Belated Income Tax Return, Account for Unabsorbed Business Losses, Closing of Financial Year, Paying Taxes, Settling of all books)

In India mostly we follow English Calendar Year and Accounting year or Financial Year. In addition to this each state having their own new year like Marathi New Year, Tamil New year, Telugu New Year, Hindi New Year, Punjabi New Year, Bengali New Year, Odia New Year, etc.

In India we follow the financial year 1^st April to 31^st March. This financial year is a legacy left behind by the British. It was the East India Company which first brought this concept of 1^st April to 31^st March as the Financial year while they were ruling the undivided India. From then we all are following the same and we have made it part of our life. In India it is mandatory for companies to follow April – March year ending.

Interestingly the UK itself has a weird date – their financial begins on 6 April and ends on 5 April.

Some people have opinion that we need to change the financial year same as Calendar Year from the existing 1^st April to 31^st March. Will it be beneficial if the financial year and calendar year will be same? We are not having this question in our mind. Number of countries have the same questions. There are number of countries who are having different financial year as compared to the Calendar year.

Let’s have a look at the financial or Accounting year for different country: