Car leasing firm director jailed more than 5 years for tax fraud, underpaying registration fees
A 48-year-old Singaporean was on Wednesday (Sept 30) sentenced to over five years' jail after he was found guilty of orchestrating a multi-year scheme to evade duty, Goods and Services Tax (GST), and Additional Registration Fee (ARF) on imported motor vehicles.In a joint media statement on Thursday (Oct 1), the Singapore Customs and Land Transport Authority (LTA) identified Mah Chee Wern as the sole director of Karkaunsl Leasing at the time of the offences. They said an investigation was launched by the Singapore Customs after it detected discrepancies in the value of declared vehicles submitted by Karkaunsl.Through its investigations, Singapore Customs said it found that Mah had instructed overseas suppliers to issue invoices with lower values.This allowed Karkaunsl to pay reduced duty and GST while retaining profits of about $800 to $1,500 per vehicle.It also acted as an import agent for a company, Hybrid Vehicle Singapore (HVS), which liaised with overseas suppliers to obtain invoices with lower values.