程阳：财政年度 Fiscal Year

Fiscal year ends for most states on June 30. Exceptions are New York, March 31;
Texas, August 31; Washington DC and Michigan, September 30.

A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is a period used for calculating annual ("yearly") financial statements in businesses and other organizations. In many jurisdictions, regulatory laws regarding accounting and taxation require such reports once per twelve months, but do not require that the period reported on constitutes a calendar year (i.e., January through December). Fiscal years vary between businesses and countries.

In the United Kingdom, the term fiscal year is sometimes used to refer to the tax year, the year used by statute for tax reporting by individuals, and is not commonly used for accounting years used by companies. The equivalent of fiscal year applied to companies is the accounting reference period (required under the Companies Acts), which usually forms the basis of the accounting period used for tax purposes with different companies' ARPs starting on different dates.

Often the fiscal or tax year is specifically established not to match the calendar year (also called natural year) so that accounting year-end work does not coincide with periods of high activity, such as the Christmas shopping rush for retailers, or with holiday periods when employees may prefer to take vacation. If the fiscal year does not coincide with the calendar year, then the calendar year in which the fiscal year ends is used in the shorthand. For example: July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008 would be FY08.

A popular use of a non-calendar year as the fiscal year involves retailers. In many countries, at the end of December, levels of inventory, receivables and payables will be higher than at other month ends and consequently more complex and time-consuming to measure accurately. Therefore, retailers commonly use a month other than December to end their fiscal year. January may be chosen as the last month of the fiscal year because activity levels are likely to be closer to normal by the end of January.

In addition, many companies find that it is convenient for purposes of comparison and for accurate stock taking to always end their fiscal year on the same day of the week, where local legislation permits. Thus some fiscal years will have 52 weeks and others 53. Major corporations that adopt this approach include Cisco Systems and Tesco.

In the United Kingdom, a number of major corporations that were once government owned, such as BT Group and the National Grid, continue to use the government's financial year, which ends on the last day of March, as they have found no reason to change since privatisation.

Nevertheless, for about 65% of publicly traded companies in the United States and for a majority of large corporations in the UK and elsewhere, except in Australia, New Zealand and Japan, the fiscal year and calendar year are identical.

Many universities have a fiscal year which ends during the summer, both to align the fiscal year with the school year, and because the school is normally less busy during the summer months.

    Such fiscal years are typically numbered using a calendar year and quarter thereof. A fiscal quarter is 3 months (1/4 of a year). For example, the United States government fiscal year for 2009 ("FY09", sometimes written "FY08–09") is as follows:

1st Quarter: October 1, 2008 – December 31, 2008
    2nd Quarter: January 1, 2009 – March 31, 2009
    3rd Quarter: April 1, 2009 – June 30, 2009
    4th Quarter: July 1, 2009 – September 30, 2009

    The U.S. government's fiscal year begins on October 1 of the previous calendar year and ends on September 30 of the year with which it is numbered. Prior to 1976, the fiscal year began on July 1 and ended on June 30. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 stipulated the change to allow Congress more time to arrive at a budget each year, and provided for what is known as the "transitional quarter" from July 1, 1976 to September 30, 1976. As stated above, the tax year for a business is governed by the fiscal year it chooses.

The Australian government's fiscal year begins on July 1 and concludes on June 30 of the following year. This applies for personal income tax and the federal budget, and most companies are required to use it as their own.

In Canada,[1] New Zealand,[2] India,[3] Hong Kong,[4] and Japan,[5] the government's financial year runs from April 1 to March 31.

Japan's income tax year runs from January 1 to December 31, but corporate tax is charged by their own one year period.

In some jurisdictions, particularly those that permit tax consolidation, companies that are part of a group of businesses must use nearly the same fiscal year (differences of up to three months are permitted in some jurisdictions, such as the U.S. and Japan), with consolidating entries to adjust for transactions between units with different fiscal years, so the same resources will not be counted more than once or not at all.