[Photo: Poh, the director of a firm that offers book-keeping, secretarial and personal tax services, underdeclared her income by $2.4 million between 1995 and 2005.]

By Esther Tan

FOR 11 years, the director of a firm offering book-keeping, secretarial and personal tax services hid more than $2.44 million from the taxman.

During that period between 1995 and 2005, Poh Chai Ha, 41, declared that she earned just over $48,000.

In reality, she made more than $2.49 million.

Yesterday, she was ordered to pay up $1.3 million in all.

In compounding her offences, the Comptroller of Income Tax considered her cooperation during investigations and the representations made by her lawyer.

Last Tuesday, Poh's company, OT Corporate Services located in Neil Road, was also taken to task for tax fraud.

OT became the first company to be convicted under a particular section of the Income Tax Act which was enacted in 2003 to punish firms guilty of serious fraudulent tax evasion.

To avoid paying tax, the firm had cooked its books in 2006 by faking payment to a subcontractor - a serious form of tax evasion which carries a penalty of four times the amount evaded.

The firm kept a record stating that it had paid out $240,000 to a Malaysian company, CPA Secretarial Services, when it had not.

For that, it was fined $10,000 and ordered to pay a penalty four times the amount of tax undercharged, which amounted to $190,000.

That year, Poh also helped to under-declare the company's income. For this, the company was fined $5,000 and ordered to pay a penalty of $64,400 - three times the amount of unpaid tax.

In another case of tax evasion, Chng Chor Tong, 51, last Tuesday became the first practising certified public accountant to be jailed for tax evasion.

He under-reported his income for 1995, 2001 and 2002 by more than $150,000. He was jailed six months and ordered to pay a penalty of $75,200.

Each year, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) chooses a few industries to audit, both to flush out under-declarations as well as educate taxpayers in record-keeping.

Last year, 791 real estate agents and food and beverage operators were audited, with about $5.7 million in taxes and penalties recovered.

Yesterday, Iras urged taxpayers to review their declarations and come forward voluntarily to highlight any errors made. 'To encourage voluntary compliance, Iras will impose lower penalties for errors disclosed voluntarily by taxpayers,' it said.

This year and the next, three self-employed groups can expect close scrutiny of their returns.

They are: medical practitioners, renovation contractors and public accounting firms.

Iras will be checking the details of their income declarations and verifying them against documents and records.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.