A woman has been fined S $5,000 on Thursday for evading the goods and service tax on luxury bags from brands such as Louis Vuitton and Loewe.
Teo Hwee Ling, 37, was stopped by immigration officers at Changi Airport on May 1 after arriving in Frankfurt on a flight.
They inspected items in a paper bag she was carrying. She was then directed to the Singapore Customs office where she declared two branded bags for tax payment - a Louis Vuitton backpack and a Loewe bag.
When asked by a Singapore Customs officer to produce the invoices for the two bags, Teo declared that these were gifts from her friend residing in Germany and she had no knowledge of their value, Singapore Customs said in a media release.
Teo provided a verbal declaration of €1,000 about S $1,470 at the time, and made a GST payment of S $68.20 after deducting the GST import relief for travellers, and made a GST payment of S $68.20 in the absence of documentation to establish the value of the bags.
She had spent more than 48 hours outside Singapore and was granted a GST relief of S $500.
Later that month, Singapore Customs received information that there were discrepancies in the declaration made by Teo and the purchases she made overseas.
Investigations revealed that Teo had suppressed the value of the two bags she declared as gifts when they were Teo's purchases and were valued at about S $5,060, the agency said.
She had failed to declare five other items that were valued at about S $9,240 when she returned to Singapore on May 1.
According to court documents, the items are a pair of Ferragamo shoes, perfumes and cosmetics, a Longchamp bag, a Chanel bag and a Louis Vuitton sling bag.
The items were not declared and were brought out of the arrival hall in a suitcase, said Singapore Customs.
It said that the GST leviable on the five undeclared items was about S $640 and the GST leviable on the five undeclared items was not paid on the two under-declared bags was about S $250.
The total value of the seven items was more than S $14,000, according to court documents.