Firm director who filed fraudulent tax claims of over $1.4m jailed, ordered to pay $1.9m penalties

Tax prosecutors Yeow Ing Yee and Joel Lee and Deputy Public Prosecutor Eugene Ho said that in each of these returns, the net input tax was wrongfully claimed as there was, in fact, no net input tax claimable.

The court heard that Iras paid out at least $661,700 of the net input tax claimed, but Tan has made no restitution of this amount.

After Tan received money in her bank account that was not derived from her business earnings but from her false entries in GST returns, she transferred more than $212,000 to her boyfriend.

The prosecutors said the money represented Tan’s benefits from criminal conduct, which were due to the false entries in GST returns that she filed.

The money was then used for household expenses, to repay debts and to purchase a Subaru XV.

Between December 2017 and March 2022, Tan also applied for voluntary GST registration of her companies and, in support of the applications, deliberately submitted invoices which she knew to be fictitious.

“This hindered officers from the Goods and Services Tax Division in the accurate processing of the applications. The said fictitious invoices were fabricated by the accused herself,” said the prosecutors.

Those who wilfully evade tax by submitting false GST returns can face a penalty of three times the amount of tax undercharged, be fined up to $10,000, and/or be jailed for up to seven years.