A woman travelling in Singapore was fined by the country’s customs department, last month for failure to declare the goods in her possession.
According to the Singapore Customs, travellers are required to declare and pay the duty and Goods and Services Tax (GST) upon entering the country should said goods exceed the duty-free concession and GST relief.
The rule applies to goods purchased overseas or in Singapore.
In a statement by the Singapore’s Customs Department, customs officers discovered several undeclared items in the traveller’s possession, ranging from luxury bags to accessories along with toys from the Popmart brand, including the well-known Labubu dolls.
The items were purchased during her business trip in London.
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“The traveller admitted she was aware of the GST relief limits but believed that only personal items required declaration,” the department said in their statement.
She was fined a maximum composition sum of S$5,000 (RM16,678).
Furthermore, a GST of S$3,963.69 (RM13,222) was also recovered for the goods.
Aside from the woman, Singapore Customs also caught another female traveller, said to be a repeat offender, at the Singapore Cruise Centre for carrying used and new gold jewellery intended for commercial purposes and was fined a composition sum of S$1,935 (RM6,455) along with S$96.95 (RM 323.43) of GST recovered.
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Furthermore, customs officers brought in a man for further questioning following a failed transaction at a Customs Declaration Kiosk at Woodlands Checkpoint, where they found undeclared items across two vehicles and also discovered undeclared invoices with “suppressed values”.
The man was fined S$3,920 (RM10,975) and a GST of S$441.05 (RM1,471.21) was recovered from the items.
Singapore Customs has since caught 13,099 travellers across land, air and sea checkpoints for not declaring taxable and dutiable goods brought into the country and were fined a total penalty of S$3,471,043 (RM11,578,400) between January to October.
