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Singapore company fined for illegally collecting GST
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PUBLISHED: 9:11 PM, OCTOBER 15, 2014
SINGAPORE — A local switchboard manufacturer and its 61-year-old manager has been ordered to pay more than S$295,000 in penalties and fines for charging customers Goods and Services Tax (GST) despite not being a GST-registered company.
Double H Switchboard Market (Double H) was found to have unlawfully collected more than*S$38,000 in GST from their customers between Dec 2004 and July 2006. A total of 198 invoices were wrongfully issued during this time.
The company’s co-owner and manager Mdm Fong Looi Hoei has pleaded guilty to 66 of the 198 charges, with the remaining 132 charges*taken into consideration for sentencing. She will have to pay a tax penalty of S$91,598.70 for the*offences.
Double H was also ordered to pay a tax penalty of $62,059.95 on 52 charges. The court also fined Mdm Fong and Double H S$1,200 on each charge, which amounted to S$141,600.
The case first came to the attention of the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) after an audit was conducted on one of Double H’s customers, Bulox Power, in 2006. IRAS auditors observed that Double H had issued a tax invoice to Bulox on March 18 that year, despite only registering as a GST company on Aug 1 2006.
An audit was then launched on Double H. Initially, auditors found no GST-chargeable amount stated on Double H’s sales transactions prior to Aug 1. But when the auditors later requested for copies of sales invoices from seven of Double H’s customers for verification, they discovered GST charges shown in the customers’ invoice, but not on sales listings or invoices furnished by Fong to IRAS.
On July 21, 2009, a raid was done on Double H’s premises at Lorong Ampas. It was there that*IRAS investigators found files containing Double H’s sales invoices showing GST charged.
Further investigations later revealed that Mdm Fong’s children were listed as directors of Double H. This was because Mdm Fong and her husband, Mr Heng Hang Ping, were both undischarged bankrupts.
The children though had no knowledge or involvement in the business, according to court statements. Mdm Fong was the main person in charge of accounting, book-keeping and signing and issuing sales invoices.
Later, Mdm Fong admitted that she had retrieved past invoices from her accounting system, retyped the sub-total amount and changed the GST-chargeable in invoices requested for by IRAS.
Non GST-registered companies found to be wrongfully collecting GST face a penalty of three times the amount of tax collected without authorisation, and a fine of up to S$10,000 for each offence.
Singapore company fined for illegally collecting GST
TODAY FILE PHOTO
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PUBLISHED: 9:11 PM, OCTOBER 15, 2014
SINGAPORE — A local switchboard manufacturer and its 61-year-old manager has been ordered to pay more than S$295,000 in penalties and fines for charging customers Goods and Services Tax (GST) despite not being a GST-registered company.
Double H Switchboard Market (Double H) was found to have unlawfully collected more than*S$38,000 in GST from their customers between Dec 2004 and July 2006. A total of 198 invoices were wrongfully issued during this time.
The company’s co-owner and manager Mdm Fong Looi Hoei has pleaded guilty to 66 of the 198 charges, with the remaining 132 charges*taken into consideration for sentencing. She will have to pay a tax penalty of S$91,598.70 for the*offences.
Double H was also ordered to pay a tax penalty of $62,059.95 on 52 charges. The court also fined Mdm Fong and Double H S$1,200 on each charge, which amounted to S$141,600.
The case first came to the attention of the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) after an audit was conducted on one of Double H’s customers, Bulox Power, in 2006. IRAS auditors observed that Double H had issued a tax invoice to Bulox on March 18 that year, despite only registering as a GST company on Aug 1 2006.
An audit was then launched on Double H. Initially, auditors found no GST-chargeable amount stated on Double H’s sales transactions prior to Aug 1. But when the auditors later requested for copies of sales invoices from seven of Double H’s customers for verification, they discovered GST charges shown in the customers’ invoice, but not on sales listings or invoices furnished by Fong to IRAS.
On July 21, 2009, a raid was done on Double H’s premises at Lorong Ampas. It was there that*IRAS investigators found files containing Double H’s sales invoices showing GST charged.
Further investigations later revealed that Mdm Fong’s children were listed as directors of Double H. This was because Mdm Fong and her husband, Mr Heng Hang Ping, were both undischarged bankrupts.
The children though had no knowledge or involvement in the business, according to court statements. Mdm Fong was the main person in charge of accounting, book-keeping and signing and issuing sales invoices.
Later, Mdm Fong admitted that she had retrieved past invoices from her accounting system, retyped the sub-total amount and changed the GST-chargeable in invoices requested for by IRAS.
Non GST-registered companies found to be wrongfully collecting GST face a penalty of three times the amount of tax collected without authorisation, and a fine of up to S$10,000 for each offence.
