The fiscal or financial or budget year is different for everyone. Most public companies use the calendar year. The various local, state and federal governments of Australia, being the Antipodes, do the opposite, starting on 1 July.
In the UK, the fiscal year starts in between, on 1 April. For the government, at least. English income tax payers begin their year of sacrifice on 6 April.
The reason for 6 April is not lost to history but requires quite a lot of it, including the use of Lady Day, aka the Feast of the Annunciation, as New Year’s Day, until Parliament decreed that 1751 began on Lady Day, 25 March, while 1752 began on the newfangled Gregorian calendar day of 1 January.
Pitt the Younger imposed England’s first income tax to raise funds to fight Napoleon. Section 72 of the Income Tax Act 1799 set the first assessment period as 5 April 1799 to 5 April 1800, lawyer-speak for 6 April 1799 to 5 April 1800.
However, 6 April is not all doom and gloom. Although Pitt did not live to see Napoleon’s defeat, 6 April 1974 was the day Abba’s “Waterloo” won for Sweden the Eurovision Song Contest. The English – but not the Swedish – B-side was the Wellingtonian “Watch Out”.
