Tag Archives: Stamp Duty

Man cheats property buyers of $1.8m

Posted on 16 Feb 2016 | Comments Off on Man cheats property buyers of $1.8m

A 39-year-old salesman was recently sentenced to seven years and two months in jail for cheating 21 victims of almost $1.8 million, reported The New Paper.

Posing as a lawyer to trick his victims, Sim Tee Peng pleaded guilty to 23 charges, including theft, cheating, giving false information and forgery. The court also took into consideration 41 more charges against him. He was also sentenced to 12 weeks’ jail on charges of counterfeiting stamp duties in property transactions.

Notably, he collected stamp duty payments as well as other conveyancing-related fees from property buyers, supposedly on behalf of four law firms.

Sim was able to collect between $17,088 and $312,000 from each victim between June 2011 and September 2012. He told the property buyers to deposit the payments into his personal account or the bank account of his company.

The director of general wholesale firm WW Hub, Sim worked as a paralegal and had four years of conveyancing experience. However, he did not have a valid practising certificate and was not formally employed by the law firms.

Sim would present his victims with fake documents, like false invoices using the letterheads of law firms or copies of unissued personal cheques. He also forged stamp certificates to trick a law firm into reimbursing him.

Sim used his ill-gotten wealth to purchase a BMW 5 Series car, which he drove using an expired vehicle licence plate number.

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Ex-property agent jailed for forgery

Posted on 17 Dec 2015 | Comments Off on Ex-property agent jailed for forgery

A former property agent was sentenced to five weeks’ jail and fined $2,145 for using a counterfeit stamp certificate in a property rental transaction and for issuing a counterfeit Goods and Services Tax (GST) invoice, revealed the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) on Monday.

Cheong Sai Chong, whose real estate licence expired on 1 July 2012, collected money from the tenant of a rental property to pay for the stamp duty. He then gave the tenant a counterfeit stamped certificate as proof of payment of the duty.

In September 2013, IRAS discovered that the tenancy agreements for certain properties had not been stamped, while the stamp duty had not been paid.

The stamp duty is paid on documents or agreements relating to properties, including tenancy or lease agreements, options to purchase, as well as sale and purchase agreements.

Cheong was also found to have charged the landlord GST for his agent commission even though he was not authorised to do so. The GST invoice provided by Cheong to the landlord was a counterfeit invoice from Dennis Wee Realty, which was authorised to collect GST.

IRAS noted that businesses that are not GST-registered but charge and collect GST from their customers may face a penalty of three times the amount of tax unlawfully collected, and a fine of up to $10,000 for each offence.

Meanwhile, any individual or business that deliberately forges stamp certificates may face fines of up to $10,000 and/or up to three years’ imprisonment. Penalties of up to four times the stamp duty payable may also be imposed for late or non-stamping of documents.

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