New Delhi, Sept. 10 -- The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) on Wednesday defended the methodology used to calculate GST growth, saying the discontinued compensation cess cannot be retained in the comparison base and accusing attempts to combine different tax bases of being "misleading and mischievous".

The clarification came in response to a claim that the government's reported GST growth for August and the first five months of the financial year was overstated by excluding compensation cess from the 2025-26 base.

CBIC said the GST Council had decided to discontinue compensation cess from September 22, 2025, for all items except tobacco and related products, while the cess on tobacco and related products was also remov...