The CRA had updated their page dealing with registered charities changing their fiscal year-end.
Occasionally a Canadian registered charity will want to change its fiscal year-end. Sometimes it is because you want to align with another charity or funder. Sometimes the charity just finds that there are better or worse times to be involved with financial statements and accounting audits.
As an aside it is best not to place in your by-law a statement like “The charity’s fiscal year-end will be December 31”. If you have it in your by-law, then in addition to obtaining CRA approval, you may also need to have a members’ meeting to change the by-law. Also, while it seems like a relatively mundane matter to approach CRA on a fiscal year-end change, as with other requests of CRA, it is sometimes not a bad idea to make sure that some of your other compliance requirements are in order.
Further, if you are wondering what your fiscal year end is, then look at your financial statements, or you can check out CRA’s Charities Listing, which has the fiscal year end on it.
CRA notes:
Filing for the transition period
If a registered charity receives approval to change its fiscal year-end, it will have a transition period that is not a full 12 months. Therefore, it must file a separate information return for the months of transition. For example, if the charity’s fiscal year-end was originally December 31, and the charity received approval to change it to March 31, one complete return is required for the original fiscal year of January 1 to December 31, and a separate complete return is required for the transition period from January 1 to March 31.
A registered charity’s fiscal year generally should not be more than 12 months.
A return for the transition period or for the new fiscal year cannot be processed until the change in fiscal year-end has been approved. Therefore, the charity should submit a request as soon as it decides to make the change.
The charity may also need to amend its governing document if it includes a fiscal year-end (for example, bylaws state the fiscal year-end is December 31, and the charity is changing the fiscal year-end to March 31). We will still process this change; however, the charity must amend the date in its governing documents and submit a certified copy to the Charities Directorate. For more information, go to Change bylaws.