if your not a business and a US citizen it may be improper for you to be using a fiscal year.
Sec. 441(c) defines an annual accounting period to be the period for which an individual regularly computes his income in keeping his books. Because the law does not require individuals to maintain books and records, it may be difficult to demonstrate that the books have been maintained for the fiscal year. Letter Ruling (TAM) 7844042 stated "... record keeping or bookkeeping is understood as the recording of transactions of a taxpayer or business in books of account. Informal notes or records, such as a summary of account income and expense, salary statements, checks stubs, and expense receipts do not constitute books." Sec. 441(g) mandates a calendar year for any taxpayer who fails to maintain books. The fiscal-year individual (or a parent responsible for tax filings of a fiscal-year minor) must recognize the need to maintain books and records more detailed than those of a typical taxpayer.
In Brooks, 6 TC 504 (1946), a chronological record of income and expenses converted by the taxpayer's accountant into a summary "ledger" was held to not constitute books and records, because there was no book to record dividend and interest receipts, cost and acquisition dates of rental real estate property, and improvements or depreciation thereon. The accountant's ledger did not cure these defects, because it was always in the accountant's possession and was not used for any purpose. In Rev. Proc. 92-13, the IRS interpreted Sec. 441(c) to require conformity of the book year-end and the taxpayer's financial statement year-end. Thus, the fiscal-year taxpayer should use a personal financial planning software package to maintain records on a fiscal-year basis and should provide only fiscal-year records to creditors or other interested parties.
