Man jailed, fined more than $4m over scheme to evade $3.5m in taxes on parallel import cars
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Eric Tan Zhi Hao had earlier pleaded guilty to fraudulently evading excise duties and GST, laundering benefits from criminal conduct, and obstructing the course of justice.
ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG
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SINGAPORE – A man involved in a scheme to under-declare to Singapore Customs the import values of vehicles, resulting in $3.5 million in excise duties and GST evaded, has been dealt with.
On July 8, Eric Tan Zhi Hao, 32, was sentenced to two years and four months’ jail, and fined $4,194,000.
If Tan does not pay the fine, he will have to serve an additional 44 months in jail.
Tan had earlier pleaded guilty to fraudulently evading excise duties and goods and services tax, laundering benefits from criminal conduct, and obstructing the course of justice.
Investigations revealed that since October 2022, Tan had conspired with three others to under-declare the value of motor vehicles imported by a company called Lightspeed Performance, which was a parallel importer of vehicles.
Under this scheme, Tan used his company, Eagle 9 Automotive, as an intermediary to receive money from car retailers that purchased motor vehicles imported by Lightspeed into Singapore.
Lightspeed would then bill Eagle 9 a partial amount of the actual value of the imported vehicles.
To make up the shortfall in the actual value of the imported vehicles, Eagle 9 would make separate transfers under the guise of “warranty payments” to two overseas companies owned by another man, also said to have had a role in the scheme.
As a result, Lightspeed submitted incorrect declarations to Singapore Customs in relation to the import of 485 vehicles, and evaded excise duty and GST totalling $3,532,170.48.
Of the 485 vehicles imported into Singapore under this scheme, Eagle 9 was used in the under-declaration of 190 cars, resulting in excise duty and GST of over $1 million being evaded.
After the director of Lightspeed was arrested in May 2023, Tan and others involved in this affair deleted the messages they had sent in a WhatsApp group chat used to facilitate the execution of this scheme to avoid being incriminated should they be hauled up.
Tan also threw away his mobile phone which had evidence of his participation in the scheme, thus obstructing the course of justice.
The cases of three others accused of being involved in the affair are still before the courts.
Those involved in fraudulently evading any duty or GST on imported goods can be fined up to 20 times the amount of tax evaded, jailed for up to two years, or both.
