Kidney specialist charged in court for filing incorrect tax returns

SINGAPORE - Kidney specialist Lye Wai Choong has been charged in court for filing incorrect tax returns, including three counts of understating the income of the Centre for Kidney Diseases, where he is a director.

According to details of court papers seen by The Straits Times, his actions allegedly resulted in around $1.44 million in undercharged taxes.

Formerly the president of the Society of Transplantation in Singapore, Lye was charged on July 5 with making incorrect returns without an excuse by understating the centre's income in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

The centre's income was over $2 million in 2013 and 2015, and over $1.9 million in 2014.

This resulted in a total of about $1.02 million in undercharged taxes.

Lye, who turned 60 on Wednesday (Aug 21), also faced 12 charges on July 5 of making incorrect Goods and Services Tax (GST) returns without reasonable excuse from 2011 to 2014 on behalf of the centre as its director, resulting in almost $420,000 in undercharged taxes.

If found guilty, he may have to pay double the amount of undercharged tax, and may also be fined up to $5,000, jailed up to three years, or both.

In a separate case, the director of IT company Orynix, Arthur Yeo, is due to face four charges on Friday (Aug 23) of assisting his company to evade tax in 2012.

He was charged on May 24 with the offences, which resulted in more than $77,000 in undercharged taxes.

If found guilty, he will have to pay thrice the amount of undercharged taxes, and may be fined up to $10,000, jailed up to seven years, or both.

ST understands that both accused are set to appear in court on Friday over the offences.

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