Search the Community

SINGAPORE: Tay Kien Chuan, a 33-year-old Singaporean, was fined S$10.8m or in default, 354 weeks' jail for evasion of customs duties and GST on car imports from Japan. The court also sentenced the car dealer to 42 months' imprisonment for furnishing false information to Customs officers on car imports from UK. The charges involved a total of 2,556 cars. Tay pleaded guilty to 327 charges and the remaining 1,668 charges were taken into consideration. The total duties and GST involved amounted to over S$2.5m. Tay set up a sole proprietorship, 8th Gear, in March 2006 to import cars for local sale. Most of the cars came from suppliers in Japan and were subsequently sold to local car dealers. Investigations by the Singapore Customs revealed that Tay used skype and MSN messenger to instruct Japanese suppliers to under-declare the values of the cars on the invoices. He would then pay for the shortfall of about S$3,000 per car in cash in subsequent face-to-face meetings. Tay set up another company in November 2006 with a similar modus operandi, and in mid-2008 also plotted with another dealer to under-declare 10 cars from the UK by about half their true value. - CNA/ir

A CAR importer was fined $95,000 for fraudulent evasion of duty and GST and giving false information to Customs officers to bring in a brand new Porsche Cayman car. Soh Chee Kwang, 31, admitted evading duty and Goods and Services Tax amounting to $9,622 on June 13 and was convicted of one count each of fraudulent evasion of duty and GST, and two counts of furnishing information to Customs officers on Monday. In his declaration to Customs on April 26 to get a Customs permit for the import of the Porsche Cayman from Germany into Singapore, Soh had stated that the value of the car was 28,000 euros (S$59,300) and submitted supporting documents to substantiate this. The car arrived on May 31. Singapore Customs' investigations revealed that the supporting documents provided by Soh were falsified. He had on two separate occasions on May 12 and 13 provided falsified documents to substantiate a lower false purchase value for the motor vehicle. Subsequent investigations revealed that the actual invoice value of the car paid for by Soh to the supplier in Germany was 48,710 euros, which is 20,710 euros higher than the value of 28,000 euros declared by Soh. Soh was arrested on June 12 June and charged. On Mondy, he was fined $60,000 and $25,000 for fraudulent evasion of $6,776.53 in duty and $2,846.14 in GST respectively. On the two counts of furnishing false information, he was fined $5,000 each. Anyone found guilty of fraudulent evasion of duties or GST can be fined up to 20 times the amount of duties and GST evaded or in default a jail sentence. Giving false information and furnishing false documents to Customs officers can land an offender a fine of up to $5,000 or jail term of up to 12 months, or both. Singapore Got LAW Dun PLAY PLAY