SINGAPORE: A sole proprietor of a consultancy firm who allegedly acted as a “promoter” of the Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) scheme will be charged in court on Friday (Jan 27), the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) said.
In a press release on Thursday, IRAS said the proprietor will face 58 charges of assisting 49 claimants to fraudulently obtain PIC cash payouts and bonuses. The claims amounted to S$1,097,694.
The agency had conducted investigations into a number of suspicious PIC claims over the past year, and said these revealed that many of the suspicious claims were linked to this PIC promoter. It added that will take enforcement action against the claimants, where appropriate, once investigations are completed.
The PIC scheme was introduced to encourage qualified businesses to invest in productivity and innovation activities, by offering them incentives like cash tax deductions for the costs involved.
IRAS said in a typical PIC scam, the promoter may assist claimants by providing fake documentation to help support the expenditures declared in their PIC cash payout applications. These documentations may include false employment contracts, working timesheets, payment vouchers, product flyers or brochures, quotations and invoices.
Where the claimants do not fulfil the PIC application condition of three local employees, the promoter would provide the names and particulars of up to three unrelated people for the purpose of falsely representing to IRAS that the claimants have met the prerequisite of three local employees.
These false employees could include friends, relatives, retirees and unemployed persons, and some of them may not know that their names had been used in the claims, it added.
In return for facilitating the false PIC claims, the promoter will take a cut from the PIC cash payouts given to the claimants, IRAS said.
Anyone who commits PIC offences with wilful intent might be subject to penalties of up to four times the amount of PIC cash payout and bonus fraudulently obtained (or which would have been obtained if the offence had not been detected), and a fine of up to $50,000 or imprisonment of up to five years.
