High days and holy days

As we wait for Lord Carter to give his revised opinion, a correspondent has pointed out to me the problems that a 30 September deadline would cause for Jewish tax practitioners. Judaism works on a lunar calendar, but with an extra month added in some years to bring the calendar back into line. The new year, the month of Tishri in the Jewish calendar, typically starts in what is September on the western calendar, and for the first three weeks of Tishri there are a number of festivals from the two day festival of Rosh Hashanah through to the week of Sukkot. In 2008 this will not be so much of a problem, because Rosh Hashanah will start at nightfall on September 29th, so only one day of the proposed tax return final month would be lost. However, in 2009 it starts with sunset on September 18th, and Yom Kippur starts at sunset on 27th.

For Muslims it would be even worse. Also working on a lunar calendar but without the 'leap' months, the Islamic year is 11 or 12 days shorter than the solar year. The month of fasting, Ramadan, therefore migrates through the seasons. In 2008 it should fall almost entirely within September.

It's fairly hard to avoid all major religious festivals, but to time a change so as to cause that much of a problem for two of the major religions of this country, and of our profession, seems a tad insensitive...