Man found guilty of helping trio file bogus claims

One man and two women filed fraudulent claims under an Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) scheme, causing the agency to disburse more than $24,000 to each of them.

The prosecutors said in their submissions that the trio then handed half of their ill-gotten gains to the man who had helped them create the claims, IT instructor-turned-magician S. Chandran, 39.

Following a trial, District Judge Kessler Soh yesterday found the Singaporean guilty of three counts of helping the trio make bogus claims under the Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) scheme, which was aimed at encouraging productivity.

Chandran, who was the sole proprietor of a firm called Paradize Consultancy, still has 55 other charges pending against him and he told the court that he will not be pleading guilty to them.

The PIC scheme offered tax deductions or cash payouts to companies that made genuine investments to enhance productivity and innovation, such as by investing in staff training, information technology or automation equipment. As part of the conditions, businesses had to employ at least three local employees before they were eligible for the PIC cash payouts.

Chandran had helped others obtain the monies even though they were not eligible for the scheme, the court heard.

The trio - Mahendran Rajoo, Shanti Peerisamy and Crystal Priya Ragavan - received their monies in 2014.

For his role in the ruse, Mahendran was ordered to pay a $49,212 penalty in 2017. He was also given the maximum $5,000 fine. The Straits Times understands that the two women had been given conditional warnings.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Sanjiv Vaswani as well as Iras prosecutors Norman Teo and Christopher Lim said in their submissions that Chandran had helped Mahendran register a sole proprietorship called M Midhuna.

The court heard that Chandran was also aware that the company had no employees. Despite this, he "instigated and convinced" Mahendran to make a bogus PIC claim. The prosecutors also said that Chandran had pre-filled the PIC application form for M Midhuna, including filling the revenue portion with the figure of $1,000 to give the impression to Iras that M Midhuna was generating revenue when it was not.

The court heard that Chandran committed similar offences with the two women.

He is out on $200,000 bail and will be sentenced on Aug 14.