New Delhi, Dec 20 (IANS): Citing procedural difficulties due to absence of clarity, the All India Tax Advocates Forum (AITAF) on Thursday urged the Finance Minister to allow assessees to rectify mistakes incurred in their monthly GST returns in the Annual Return form GSTR 9 for the financial year 2017- 18.

"Ever since the GST was introduced in July 2017, the government had to sort out ground level procedural difficulties relating to filing of multiple monthly GST returns. In the absence of clarity, assessees could hardly get any opportunity to rectify mistakes incurred in their monthly GST returns while filing the Annual GST returns for 2017 18," AITAF President M K Gandhi said in a statement.

"Since the government has decided to extend the due date for filing Annual Return GSTR-9 and form GSTR-9C (Audit Report) for 2017-18 till March 31, 2019, the assessees should be allowed to correct mistakes made by them while filing monthly return GSTR-3B and GSTR-1," he said.

Gandhi said that in the absence of clarity about matters relating to refund of Input Tax Credit (ITC) and mismatch between sales and purchase, the assessees had a "harrowing experience in filing the monthly GST returns".

Most of the assessees have not yet got opportunity to rectify their mistakes in their monthly GST returns, Gandhi said.

"Because of ambiguity on the part of the government to put in place a workable system of tax reconciliation under which the mismatch between tax payments and final sales return are rectified, the assessees are facing manifold problems in claiming ITC," said AITAF chief appealing to the government to allow assessees to make necessary amendments and corrections to settle their claims.