The way I heard it, the move from Mar to Jan was not for political reasons, but for tax reasons.<p>Spring makes sense for starting a new year; rebirth and all that. But it's lousy as the start of a tax year: who's to say whether all the new animals in the herds got born last year, and are already taxable, or this year, and are not?<p>Start your tax year in the middle of winter, however, (like astronomers used to switch days at noon instead of at midnight) and all is good: no livestock is getting born midwinter so the only fuzziness left is did that sheep die this tax year or last? Much more legible.