Singapore Jeweller Fined for GST Cheating with 5 Indian Tourists

On Wednesday, a director of a jewellery company was fined SGD104,400 for conspiring with five Indian tourists to illegally obtain goods and services tax (GST) refunds that they were not entitled to.

The cases involving Woo Sin Chai of Arthesdam Jewellery and his colleagues were linked to large amounts of GST tourist refunds claimed between 2015 and 2016, according to The Straits Times.

The five Indian nationals were Kothandaraman Gnanam, Karunanidhi Rajesh, Karunanithi Saravanan, Ramaiyan Karthikeyan and Waithiyalingam Karunanidhi, who were then between 29 and 61 years old and were jailed in 2017 for their part in the offences.

Woo, now 61, had pleaded guilty to multiple charges brought against him under the Goods and Services Tax (General) Regulations.

According to the court, Arthesdam Jewellery has stores on Serangoon Road in the Little Indian precinct, which is one of the most popular shopping districts for South Asians.

Woo, a Singaporean, had attended training on the electronic Tourist Refund Scheme (eTRS) and was in charge of eTRS matters at the company.

According to David Lim, a senior tax prosecutor with the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras), the Tourist Refund Scheme (TRS) allows tourists to claim a refund of GST paid.

Woo was at his workplace between March 2015 and May 2016 when he and some colleagues conspired to assist five foreigners in illegally obtaining GST refunds.

According to the broadsheet report, Arthesdam Jewellery was just one of the companies linked to their ruse.

The men were involved in a scheme in which they pretended to be tourists in order to obtain eTRS tickets before filing fraudulent GST refund claims that they were not entitled to.

The syndicate allegedly made more than SGD167,000 in fraudulent GST tourist refund claims, according to the Straits Times.

By the time the Indian men were caught, they had moved the benefits of their criminal conduct totalling SGD112,924 out of Singapore.

Members of the syndicate loitered around a number of Little India jewellery stores, attempting to obtain invoices from actual customers as part of their illegal scheme.

Once a customer agreed to sell or give the invoice, a syndicate member would give his passport and embarkation card to a jewellery store employee in order for the claimant’s passport number to be used to apply for a GST refund.

The employee then entered the claimant’s information and the jewellery purchased into the eTRS system and printed an eTRS refund ticket for the tourist to use at the airport to illegally claim the refund amount.

Iras had previously stated that it is a crime to assist another person in obtaining fraudulent eTRS refunds, such as by selling one’s receipt or invoice.

To date, nine other Arthesdam Jewellery employees have been prosecuted in court and fined in January of this year.