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Calendar year

 
(′kal·ən·dər ′yir)

(astronomy) The year in the Gregorian calendar, common years having 365 days and leap years 366. Also known as civil year.


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Barron's Business Dictionary:

Calendar year

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Continuous period beginning January 1 and ending December 31.
Contrast with fiscal year.

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The one-year period that begins on January 1 and ends on December 31, based on the commonly used Gregorian calendar. For individual and corporate taxation purposes, a calendar year will generally comprise all of the year's financial information used to calculate income tax payable.

Investopedia Says:
Most individuals and many companies use the calendar year as their fiscal year, or the one-year period on which their payable taxes are calculated. However, some companies choose to report their taxes based on a fiscal year (e.g. starting on April 1 and ending on March 31) to better conform to seasonality patterns or other accounting concerns applicable to their businesses.

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Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Calendar year

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Generally speaking, a calendar year begins on the New Year's Day of the given calendar system and ends on the day before the following New Year's Day. By convention, a calendar year consists of a natural number of days. To reconcile the calendar year with an astronomical cycle (which could not possibly be reckoned in a whole number of days), certain years contain extra days. Through further insertion of non-day units of time, the calendar year can be further synchronized; however, these extra units of time are not considered part of the calendar.

The Gregorian year begins on January 1 and ends on December 31 with a length of 365 days in an ordinary year and 366 days in a leap year giving an average length of 365.2425 days. This is very close to the average length of 76 Islamic calendar years (based on the average time between successive vernal equinoxes, currently 365.2424 days and increasing marginally). Other formula-based calendars can have lengths which are further out of step with the solar cycle, for example, the Julian calendar has an average length of 365.25 days, and the Hebrew calendar has an average length of 365.2468 days.

The astronomer's mean tropical year which is averaged over equinoxes and solstices is currently 365.24219 days, slightly shorter than the average length of the year in most calendars, but the astronomer's value changes over time, so William Herschel's suggested correction to the Gregorian calendar may become unnecessary by the year 4000.

Quarters

The calendar year can be divided into 4 quarters, often abbreviated Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4:

  • First quarter: from the beginning of January to the end of March
  • Second quarter: from the beginning of April to the end of June
  • Third quarter: from the beginning of July to the end of September
  • Fourth quarter: from the beginning of October to the end of December

See also

References


 
 

 

Copyrights:

McGraw-Hill Science & Technology Dictionary. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms. Copyright © 2003, 1994, 1989, 1984, 1978, 1976, 1974 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Barron's Business Dictionary. Dictionary of Business Terms. Copyright © 2007 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Investopedia Financial Dictionary. Copyright ©2010, Investopedia.com - Owned and Operated by Investopedia US, A Division of ValueClick, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Calendar year Read more

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