Definition of Fiscal year
A period of twelve consecutive months chosen by a business as the accounting period for annual reports. A corporation’s accounting year. Due to the nature of a particular business, some companies do not use the calendar year for their bookkeeping. A typical example is the department store which finds December 31 too early a date to close its books after Christmas sales. For that reason many stores close their accounting year January 31. Their fiscal year, therefore, runs from February 1 of one year through January 31 of the next. The fiscal year of other companies may run from July 1 through the following June 30. Most companies, though, operate on a calendar year basis. See also Accounting period.
That's the definition of Fiscal year in Black's Law Dictionary 6th Edition. Courtesy of Cekhukum.com.