9 January 2014

The Goods and Services Tax (General) (Amendment No.2) Regulations 2013 was published in the Government Gazette, Electronic Edition, on 30 December 2013 and shall come into operation on 1 January 2014. Some of the amendments to the Goods and Services Tax (General) Regulations (Rg 1) are:

• Regulation 46A (Approved refiner and consolidator scheme) is amended to require the purchaser to repay the GST chargeable on the supply, where the purchaser is ineligible for such a benefit at the time of supply.
• Regulation 50B (Revocation of approval and recovery of refund made as tax due) is substituted to allow the Comptroller of GST and authorised officers to revoke any approval for a refund under the Tourist Refund Scheme and recover the refund. This applies to approvals for refund granted before, on or after 1 January 2014.
• A new Division 5 — Seizure, etc., of goods and arrest, etc., of persons is inserted in Part VII: Tourist Refund Scheme (TRS). Under the Division, new Regulations 51 (Seizure, etc., of goods) and 51A (Arrest, etc., of persons) are inserted to allow the Comptroller of GST and authorised officers to seize goods for investigation and prosecution purposes, where TRS fraud is suspected, and arrest without warrant a person suspected to be involved in, or assisting another person in a TRS fraud.

For the full details, please refer to the Singapore Statutes Online.

Source: Government Gazette