The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) on Wednesday accused Garg of “cherry-picking figures from two different tax bases” and called such an approach “thoroughly misleading and mischievous” and misleading citizens by comparing two fundamentally different datasets.
Garg, who has been at the centre of the recent controversy over the government’s GDP growth estimates, had questioned the Centre’s claim of 14.8% growth in gross GST collections in August and 11% growth in the first five months. In a social-media post, with an attached article, he argued that the headline numbers present an overly favourable picture of revenue performance because compensation cess collected in the year-earlier period was excluded from the comparison.
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According to Garg’s calculation, including compensation cess would bring five-month gross GST growth down to 4.08%, while net GST growth would be only 1.30% and alleged that the government had “played a trick” in presenting the higher growth numbers.
In a detailed rejoinder, the CBIC said that compensation cess has ceased to exist from February 1, 2026, and continuing to include it for growth would amount to comparing “apples and oranges” and would distort rather than improve the measure of GST performance.
Also Read: Delhi HC refuses to quash criminal case against Supertech executivesThe board also rejected Garg’s suggestion that the cess had been “quietly” removed from the calculations, saying there was no attempt to conceal or quietly exclude compensation cess and there was a separate disclosure in the monthly revenue statements.
The GST Council decided to discontinue compensation cess from September 22, 2025, on all items except tobacco and related products. The cess on tobacco and related products was subsequently removed from February 1, 2026.
The board said that monthly GST revenue releases separately showed compensation cess, while year-on-year growth was calculated on the comparable tax base comprising CGST, SGST and IGST for the corresponding periods. A footnote also disclosed the treatment of cess.
“A growth rate is meaningful only when it is computed on a comparable basis, that is, on the same set of levies on both sides of the comparison. Otherwise, it is like comparing apples and oranges,” the CBIC said.