Diffrence between Financial year and Assessment year

Financial year
Financial year is the Year is termed as year in which a indiviadual  has earned  income. for eg. you have been employed from 01st of April 2009 to 31st of March 2010, then this period is termed as your Financial Year.
Assessment Year’ is the period of 12 months commencing from the 1st date of April and ending on the 31st day of March next year. `Previous Year’ is the financial year immediately preceding the assessment year. As the income of the previous year is to be taxed in the assessment year, the income of financial year 2000-2001 will be taxed in Assessment Year 2001-2002. Likewise, income of F.Y.2001-2002 will be taxed in A.Y.2002-2003

Assessment year

Assessment year is the year in which you file your returns for the Income earned for the financial year, which had just ended. The income earned in a year is always assessed and taxed in the next year. The year in which income is earned is called Financial Year and the year in which it is assessed and taxed is called Assessment Year. As an example, the income of Financial Year 2011-12 will be assessed for the taxes to be paid and will be taxed in Assessment Year 2012-13.

So, the whole concept is to earn income in a particular year and pay tax on it and file your return the next year . Also remember that all tax laws are framed for Assessment Year and not for Financial Year i.e. reference to any year in Tax laws will means reference to Assessment Year. If we are in  in Financial Year 2012-13 and then Assessment Year will be 2013-14. This means that we are earning income in the year 2012-13 and we will be paying taxes on this income in the Assessment Year 2013-14.