Malaysian jailed for under-declaring OMV, tax evasion

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Sep 22, 2017 06:00 am

A parallel car importer, who under-declared the open market value of imported cars and fraudulently evaded excise duty and the goods and services tax (GST), was jailed for eight weeks.

Malaysian Tang Luan Yew, 42, was also ordered to pay $3.7 million in fines and shortfall in tax yesterday. The Singapore permanent resident had pleaded guilty to 185 of 660 charges under the Customs Act and Road Traffic Act.

Tang, who owns Teng Autosports Trading, had admitted to 104 Customs Act charges - 52 counts each of fraudulent evasion of excise duty and of GST - and 81 charges of giving incorrect information relating to the value of vehicles, causing a shortfall in the additional registration fee chargeable.

The court heard that in July 2015, Teng Autosports was investigated for fraudulent evasion of excise duty and GST on cars imported into Singapore from Japan, Britain and Hong Kong. Tang stated values that were lower than the actual transaction values of the cars in the Declaration of Facts for Assessment of Motor Vehicles.

For the 104 charges proceeded, he paid an excise duty of $642,062 and GST of $269,666 when the actual amount payable was $777,463 and $326,534 respectively. As a result of the under-declaration, he fraudulently evaded duty and GST totalling $192,269.

The investigation showed that Tang had under-declared the open market value of 244 vehicles imported by his company, resulting in a shortfall of $1.71m in the additional registration fee paid to the Land Transport Authority.