SINGAPORE — A former mobile phone and accessories seller was ordered to pay a penalty of S$11,802 for failing to register for Goods and Services Tax (GST) for sales that were made on e-commerce platforms such as Lazada, Shopee and Qoo10.

Edwin Pang Chung Jie, 40, was also fined S$4,000 by the court on Friday (Nov 27) for the offence. 

He was the first person to be charged for failing to register for GST for online sales.

The court heard that Pang was the owner of two mobile phone and accessories shops — Edmobile and Moogi.

Investigations found that from Dec 31, 2012 to Sept 30, 2013, the taxable supplies for his two stores had exceeded S$1 million.

Therefore, he was required to register for GST by Oct 30, 2013 — 30 days after the close of the quarter that ended on Sept 30, 2013.

As a result, he owed S$118,023 in taxes for the period of Dec 1, 2013 to Sept 30, 2015.

Separately, Pang had faced two charges for submitting incorrect tax returns without a reasonable excuse and another two charges for failing to keep proper records of invoices received by him in relation to his businesses.

The total tax involved amounted to S$129,411, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) said in a media statement on Friday.

These charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

Iras said that it has recovered more than S$3.8 million in taxes and penalties between 2015 and 2019 from 65 audit cases on taxpayers who operate online businesses. 

The audit findings revealed the following compliance issues of online business owners:

• Omission of income derived from online business in income tax returns

• Claims made for business expenses that are not tax-deductible

• Failure to register for GST when the business’ 12-month taxable turnover has exceeded S$1 million at the end of the calendar year

• Failure to keep proper record and documentary evidence

“Iras takes a serious view of non-compliance and tax evasion,” it said.

“There will be severe penalties for those who wilfully evade tax. The authority will not hesitate to bring offenders to court.”

Offenders may face a penalty of up to four times the amount of tax evaded. They may also be jailed for their offences, Iras said.