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A 37-year-old Singaporean woman, Teo Hwee Ling, was fined S$5,500 on Oct. 6, 2022 for fraudulent evasion of goods and services tax (GST).

Came back from Germany

Teo arrived at Changi Airport on a flight from Frankfurt on May 1, 2022.

She was stopped by Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers for a check on the items in a paper bag she was carrying before she exited the arrival hall.

She was subsequently directed to Singapore Customs office where she declared two branded bags for tax payment.

Claimed she didn't know value of bags

When asked by a Singapore Customs officer to produce the invoices for the two bags, Teo declared that these were gifts from her friend residing in Germany.

She claimed she had no knowledge of their value.

Claimed bags worth €1,000

As there was no documentation to establish the value of the bags, Teo provided a verbal declaration of €1,000 (S$1,470) and made a GST payment of S$68.20 for the bags after deducting the GST import relief for travellers.

Travellers are granted GST import relief on new goods that are purchased overseas and brought into Singapore for their personal use.

The relief amount is based on the duration that the traveller has spent outside Singapore.

Relief of S$500 for purchases is granted for durations longer than 48 hours.

Discrepancies found

In May 2022, Singapore Customs received information that there were discrepancies in the declaration made by Teo earlier and the actual purchases she made overseas.

Teo was asked to report to Singapore Customs for further investigations.

Investigations revealed that Teo had suppressed the value of the two bags which she declared as gifts.

Teo’s purchases were valued at about S$5,060.

On top of that, Teo had also failed to declare five other items, which were valued at about S$9,240, on her return to Singapore that day.

These items belonged to her and were brought out of the arrival hall in a luggage without declaration.

The GST short-paid on the two under-declared bags was about S$250 and the GST leviable on the five undeclared items was about S$640.

Teo pleaded guilty to one charge of fraudulent evasion of GST amounting to about S$890.

One charge of furnishing false information was taken into consideration during the sentencing.

All arriving travellers are to make accurate and complete declaration of the dutiable and taxable items in their possession for duty and GST payment.

Any person found guilty of fraudulent evasion of GST will be liable to a fine of up to 20 times the amount of tax evaded and/ or be jailed for up to two years.

Refusing to answer questions or knowingly give false information or furnishing false document are serious offences.

Offenders can be fined up to S$5,000 and/ or jailed for up to 12 months.

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