On December 20, the finance ministry revealed that the share of central cess and surcharges in yearly gross tax revenue had risen 10 percentage points between 2019-20 and 2021-22. This was a rather steep jump, given that most of the cess and surcharge amount is not shared with the states.
According to a reply by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Rajya Sabha to Member of Parliament John Brittas, in 2019-20, the year before the share of cesses and surcharges was 18.2 per cent of gross tax revenue of 20.10 crore. In 2020-21, the year of peak pandemic, it was 25.1 per