Indian-origin company director fined for under-reporting value of imported cars in Singapore

Thiyambarawatta Subash Indrajith, director of automotive company Concordway, pleaded guilty to nine charges under the Customs Act involving duty evasion on 34 imported vehicles worth more than S$161,251.

Ten other charges were also taken into consideration at sentencing – four charges of fraudulent evasion of Goods and Services Tax, and six charges of abetting and knowingly assisting in making a false declaration to fraudulently evade Goods and Services Tax.

Singapore’s Customs and Land Transport Authority said in a joint statement on Tuesday that the national court imposed the jail term and fine on April 24.

Fined S$1,068,000 for fraudulent tax evasion and sentenced to two months in jail for under-reporting the value of 21 vehicles when registering with the Land Transport Authority, resulting in underpayment of more than S$1 million in additional registration fees.

The 59-year-old Singaporean has until May 25 to pay the fine for customs violations or he will be jailed for 12 months and two weeks for breach of contract.

Concordway is an importer of motor vehicles from overseas suppliers in Japan and the UK and also provides services to customers wishing to source and import vehicles from overseas suppliers through Subash’s contacts.

According to Channel News Asia, customs began an investigation after the individual importer of a Porsche 718 Cayman Style Edition submitted documents indicating a suspiciously low declared value.

Based on information obtained from the importer, customs officers searched Subhash’s residence.

He later admitted that he assisted customers in importing vehicles for a commission of S$3,000 to S$4,000 by liaising with overseas suppliers and providing stamped invoices that were far lower than the actual vehicle prices.

These false invoices were then submitted to customs as documentation to support importation.

To hide the trail of funds, the payment was split into two transactions. Suppression payments and balance payments corresponding to the declared value, that is, the difference between the actual value and the declared value.

Subhash will also make one-time transfers to overseas suppliers to pay the remaining balances on multiple vehicles to avoid detection.

For fraudulently importing goods with evading duties, Subash faces a fine of up to 20 times the amount of duty evaded or a jail term of up to two years, or both.

For providing incorrect information on any matter affecting the additional registration fee, he could be fined up to S$10,000 or jailed for up to six months, in addition to paying any undercharged fees, the channel reported.

This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.