Beginning of the Financial Year April 6th

At last, I can relax! Today, is the beginning of the Financial Year. I have been trying to get money into my pension. I wanted to take advantage of tax concessions before the end of the financial year. How hard was that! But now done and I won’t bore you with the tedious details. And of course, it was probably the wrong time to do it, given the Trumpian Meltdown on stock exchanges. Thanks, Mr Trump.

Here is President Ronald Reagan talking about the inevitable disaster of high tariffs. Surprisingly, erudite? It makes me wonder whether Mr Trump is actually a Conservative?

Why is April 6th the Beginning of the Financial Year?

If you remember, in the medieval period, the official New Year was on March 25th. This was the Day of the Annunciation, the Day Mary conceived Jesus. (for much more on this see my post march-25th-feast-of-the-annunciation/). But in 1752, we followed belatedly, the Pope’s reorganisation of the Julian Calendar. We had to put our days back in sync with the Sun. This had gone 11 days out of kilter since Julius Caesar’s Reorganisation (see my post here!). As we lost 11 days, we had to put them back. So the beginning of the Financial Year in 1753 was changed to April 5th. A further adjustment in 1800 was necessary as this would have been a leap year. So the new Financial Year moved to April 6th. And it has remained so ever since. For more on the Gregorian Calendar look here.

Churchill & Roosevelt

Today, I did my Jane Austen Walk. I took people to Bond Street past the statue of Churchill sitting on a park bench chatting with Roosevelt. Seemed like it was from a different world?

On my Chaucer Walk this afternoon, one of the attendees told me he has been signed up to my Almanac for several years. He said he was very happy to see posts reposted from previous years. Thank you and good to know.

First Published 6th April 2025