A sole proprietor, Lau Giang Boon Eric (“Lau”) was sentenced to 8 weeks’ jail and fined $127,170. Lau had made fictitious entries in his GST returns and fraudulently claimed $42,390 in GST refunds.
Lau is the sole-proprietor of Xcellence Comm, which was in the business of import, export, distribution, sales and servicing of IT and computer equipment. Lau had with wilful intent to defraud GST, inflated the input tax claims from 1 Apr 2007 to 31 Dec 2007, which resulted in net GST refund claims of $42,390.
IRAS takes a serious view of GST-registered businesses that wilfully make false claims for GST refunds or under-charge GST on sales. Claiming input tax on fictitious purchases is an offence. Offenders face a penalty of up to 3 times of the amount of tax undercharged and/or imprisonment up to 7 years.
Source: IRAS, 25 Oct 2012