FY18 AR: Government remained the bigger beneficiary The GST Council's (perhaps unintentional?) u-turn on cigarette taxation immediately post GST rollout ensured that government retained a lion's share of ITC's value-addition. Over the past 5 years, 73% of the total value-added by ITC accrued to the government (value-added' defined as the value created by the economic activities of the company and its employees). ITC contributed a cumulative INR 1.5tn (USD 23bn) to the Exchequer over the past 5 years (FY14-18) during which period its own profits were just INR477bn (USD 7.3bn) - share of the government in the value-added by ITC is 3.5x the amount that accrued to the providers of...