Singapore Man Fined $2.38 Million for Evading Goods and Services Tax

Singapore State Courts fined Chin Yew Wen, a Singaporean national, $2.38 million (in Singapore dollars) for evading Goods and Services Tax, Singapore Customs announced July 5. Should the defendant not pay, he will spend 32 months in prison. The sole director of freight forwarding company GLS Shipping, Chin pleaded guilty to two charges of fraudulently evading GST, two similar charges and four other charges of falsification of documents after Singapore Customs found discrepancies between the importer's Cargo Clearance Permits and GLS's permits. Customs said Chin gave the agency fraudulent values of the goods when making declarations for the permits, reflecting lower values than the value of the goods and pocketing the difference in the GST paid. The evaded GST amounted to $433,484.49.

“We remind traders to conduct checks on declarations to Singapore Customs made on their behalf by their freight forwarders or declaration agents using their Unique Entity Number (UEN)," said Yeo Sew Meng, customs assistant director-general. "To safeguard themselves against frauds, we encourage traders to sign up for the Trader Notification Service to receive notifications relating to permit declarations made using their UEN. The notifications include information on the total amount of duty and/or GST payable."