I learn from the FT this morning that serious consideration is being given to moving the start of the tax year from 6th April to the 1st January, thus moving into line with a number of important countries. Seemingly a useful reform, particularly for those do who do business abroad - this despite the wide variation across the world recorded at reference 1. In Iran, for example, their year starts on the first day of their calendar, that is to say on our 19th, 21st or 22nd of March, depending.
It seems that here in England, and more recently in the UK, the date has moved around a bit, with the church finally ruling in the middle ages that the day of the Annunciation, the day on which the Angel Gabriel came to visit the Blessed Virgin Mary with the Holy Spirit, aka Lady Day, aka 25th March, was the proper day with which to start the new year. Subsequently, it was decided that the obsolete Julian calendar should be replaced by the more satisfactory Gregorian calendar, accomplished here by removing 11 days from September 1752. This caused some trouble at the time, although if it crept into Clarissa (of reference 2), published just a few years earlier I missed it. Trouble built around things like paying your year's rent on Lady Day - because the next Lady Day would come forward, and the next year's rent would fall due in something less than a year.
Part of the answer was to move the start of the tax year from Lady Day to 5th April, and then subsequently, something to do with leap years, to 6th April. All this and more is explained at reference 3.
All of which nicely illustrates the difficulty of making what seem like sensible changes without causing too much collateral damage. I associate to Universal Credit, a seemingly sensible reform which has caused a lot more trouble.
The piece in the FT was illustrated by a contemporary painting by Hogarth, included above and described as featuring a campaign banner protesting against the loss of 11 days. Careful inspection reveals a bit of writing underneath the left foot of the chap having something done to his head. At the bottom of the painting. So 'featuring' is putting it a bit strongly. Tory anti-Semitism is rather more visible, through the open window. All this and more is explained at reference 4.
PS: not too pleased to find that my own birthday, Michaelmas, the third quarter day of the year, is caught up in all this. Not yet a moveable feast, but not as solid as I had thought.
References
Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_year#Tax_year.
Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/08/clarissa-concluded.html.
Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_(New_Style)_Act_1750.
Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humours_of_an_Election.
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