Company to pay hefty penalty for evading tax

6 August 2012

Positive Engineering Pte Ltd has been convicted of tax evasion for Years of Assessment (YA) 2008 and 2009, and was ordered to pay a fine of $12,000 and a penalty of $250,990.92, three times the total amount of tax evaded.

The company specialises in fabricating and installing aluminium panels and fire-rated doors as well as non-building construction services. It sold scrap materials to a scrap dealer from 2007 to 2008 however had neither kept records nor issued sales invoices to the scrap dealer for these transactions. Some of the sales proceeds were not deposited into the company bank account but either kept by one of the company directors, or deposited into her personal bank account held jointly with another director.

The company’s failure to report the income earned from the sale of the scrap materials in its audited accounts and Income Tax Returns for YA 2008 to 2009 resulted in under-reporting of income totalling $464,798 and correspondingly, tax undercharged of $83,663.64 for both YAs.

Source: Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS)