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Desirability and Feasibility of Changing the Financial Year

Desirability and Feasibility of Changing the Financial Year
Start Date :
Aug 24, 2016
Last Date :
Oct 01, 2016
00:00 AM IST (GMT +5.30 Hrs)
Submission Closed

The Government of India has appointed a Committee chaired by Dr. Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser, to examine the desirability and feasibility of having a ‘new ...

The Government of India has appointed a Committee chaired by Dr. Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser, to examine the desirability and feasibility of having a ‘new financial year’. Other distinguished members of the Committee are Shri K M Chandrasekhar, former Cabinet Secretary, Shri PV Rajaraman, former Principal Finance Secretary, Tamil Nadu and Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Senior Fellow Centre for Policy Research.

Presently, the financial year followed by governments in India runs from 1st April to the following 31st March.

This issue was last examined by the L K Jha Committee in 1985, whose recommendation to move to a financial year of January 1- December 31 (for Central and State Governments) was then not accepted by the then Government.

There are many arguments for and against the change in financial year which revolve around issues of budget and cash management by government, seasonality of government revenues and expenditure, impact of Monsoon on budget forecasting, working season, timelines involved in the legislative cycle of passage of Budget by the Parliament, international comparability of fiscal statistics, aligning government’s financial year with year for tax assessment and corporate accounting purposes. Some arguments are less on the intrinsic merit or demerit of the change but rather on the timing of the change when the change coincides with other developments impacting businesses.

This Discussion Forum seeks to invite inputs from everyone interested in this issue.

We welcome your comments, suggestions, information and documents on the Committee’s Terms of Reference and issues related to it. Please provide these latest by 30th September, 2016.

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Showing 816 Submission(s)
mathai
mathai kuriakose 8 years 2 months ago

worth trying though nothing much is expected. what may really help are the following
1. continuous budgeting. quarterly budgets are now possible. and desirable. an year is too long a period for effective course correction.
2. simpler budgeting . sanctions should be automatic unless specifically disallowed in a subsequent budget.
3. more transparent. more frequent snapshots of fiscal position should be in the public domain

Mohd Jaleel
Mohd Jaleel 8 years 2 months ago

To meet international standards it requires a change. but shortcomings like number of holidays in 3qtr are more like dasera,diwali,christmas,winter seasonal effects where many would be avoiding hectic work. Different industries depends on academic session to which their balance sheet gives meaningful picture. Like Education Institute. This is to be chain effects to be taken to consideration.

yadamit1@gmail.com
amit yadav 8 years 2 months ago

it should be done at the earliest so that budget allocation and distribution and work on budget announcement to be done in time bound manner.

KSHITIJ MATHUR_1
KSHITIJ MATHUR 8 years 2 months ago

Respected Sir, I believe that changing financial year will help us to compete with the rest of the world as many countries start their financial year from January 1. With the new financial year,we can help our domestic companies to compete with the rest of the world in manufacturing.

Balakrishnan B
Balakrishnan B 8 years 2 months ago

It's a great idea to change the financial year according to calendar year. Hope it will be remove the confusion of many people in understanding the financial year period better.. Best wishes....

Basudeb Chakraborty
Basudeb Chakraborty 8 years 2 months ago

I would prefer Calendar year to be Financial year. Because in a country like India where most of the people can not differentiate between the two. I do think, to eliminate the confusion of between the two system, Calendar year is more easy to be treated as Financial year.Financial year involves two years like 2015-16, 2016-17..... but Calendar year is not so complicated.

nks2014
narendra shah 8 years 2 months ago

Sir,now we have become used to April to March year after efforts of so many years-why to DISTURB do not understand -there is no benefit in unnecessary changes- a lot wastage of money-with our firm stand & focus even foreign companies have changed their year from Jan-Dec to April-March-why we want to follow WEST-have seen many year ends like Deewali,Ramnavmi,Rath Yatra etc in the past but UNIFORM YEAR IS MUST AND NOW UNIFORMITY HAS BEEN ATTAINED IN APRIL -MARCH--PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB IT

Mothi Prasad
Mothi Prasad 8 years 2 months ago

Mr. Prime Ministerji, please think of the 1985 discussion of introducing the calendar year for the Fiscal year too.as it would ease and a mindset of starting a new year with a new budget.for this we would start the process in the last quarter of the year i.e, october(start preparing the budget),november(inrtoduce it in the parliament),december(discussion of the money bill and on christmas eve i.e 23 or 24 wind up the session and a great happy new year!!!).

seesing09@gmail.com
seema singh 8 years 2 months ago

I seema Ashok Singh, would like to suggest this that no matter how great disadvantages are there to do this. If we really want to grow and want to compete
with the rest of the whole world then this is very essential and first step towards growth. Our Government must do this at the earliest.