ROLAND TAY OF DIRECT FUNERAL SERVICES
Undertaker Roland Tay Hai Choon is well known for providing pro bono funeral arrangements for murder victims.
Last September, the 77-year-old was fined S$12,000 and ordered to pay a penalty of more than S$529,000 for tax offences.
Roland Tay was a partner of Direct Singapore Funeral Services & Embalming at the time of the offences.
He was also the sole proprietor of five other businesses: Hindu Casket, Tong Aik Undertaker, All Saints Care Services, 24 Hours Direct Casket and Defu Veterinary Clinic.
His employee, 80-year-old Pang Toon Jim, did bookkeeping for some of his businesses.
Roland Tay got Pang to fill in the personal income tax return forms on his behalf for YA2011 and YA2012, and he signed off on the forms. In YA2013, he filed his income tax returns online.
In all three years, his annual income exceeded S$500,000. But his income was underreported as being S$121,051, S$138,976 and S$81,766 respectively.
As a result, he was undercharged a total of more than S$250,000 in taxes across the three years.
Investigations also revealed that the total value of Roland Tay’s businesses’ taxable supplies for four consecutive quarters exceeded S$1 million on Jun 30, 2010.
He was required to notify the comptroller of GST of his liability to register for GST by Jul 30, 2010, but did not do so, and owed almost S$287,000 in taxes as a result.
The offences were uncovered through IRAS’ audit programme. Roland Tay made full restitution of the amounts owed.
His defence lawyers argued that he lacked financial knowledge and “relied entirely” on Pang.
They also said he had ensured compliance in the future as he had corporatised his business, which was being run by his family members.
GRACE TAY OF GRACE CASKET
Grace Tay, the 40-year-old owner of Grace Casket, was jailed for 25 days and fined almost S$75,000 for tax evasion in December 2022.
Grace Casket acted as a contractor, selling funeral packages and outsourcing jobs to suppliers in the undertaker business.
At the same time, Grace Tay also earned a monthly salary working for her parents’ business, Teck Hin Undertaker.
She admitted to purposely reporting only what she earned from Teck Hin Undertaker in her income tax returns for YA2018.
She omitted a total of more than S$600,000 in income from her returns from YA2017 to YA2019, resulting in her being undercharged almost S$57,000 in taxes.
The omissions reportedly came to light only when IRAS audited Teck Hin Undertaker.
When IRAS interviewed Grace Tay in relation to this audit, she disclosed her ownership of Grace Casket but claimed that “business was minimal” and that she was not active in it.
Investigators later found out that she had not been truthful and that Grace Casket was actually “thriving”.
The judge reportedly found that Grace Tay was “no babe in the woods” and that her omission of her income was “not a technical or accidental oversight”.
