New Delhi, Nov 14 (IANS): The government on Thursday extended the due dates for filing of annual return (GSTR-9) and reconciliation statement (GSTR-9C) for financial year 2017-18 to December 31, 2019 and for financial year 2018-19 to March 31, 2020.

The Centre also decided to simplify these forms by making various fields of these forms as optional.

The changes have been notified by Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC).

The said amendments inter-alia allow the taxpayers not to provide split of input tax credit availed on inputs, input services and capital goods and also not provide HSN-level information of outputs or inputs, etc. for the financial years 2017-18 and 2018-19.

CBIC expects that with these changes and the extension of deadlines, all the GST taxpayers would be able to file their annual returns along with reconciliation statement for the financial years 2017-18 and 2018-19 in time.

Various representations regarding challenges faced by taxpayers in filing of GSTR-9 and GSTR-9C were received by the department.

It may be noted that earlier the last date for filing of GSTR-9 and GSTR-9C for FY18 was November 30, 2019 while that for FY19 was December 31, 2019.