SINGAPORE — One of two brothers who run a popular durian stall in the Ghim Moh area has been sentenced to three weeks’ jail and fined after the duo admitted last week to under-declaring their trading income by about S$708,000 over six years.

Shui Poh Sing, 60, was fined S$5,000 and ordered to pay a penalty of S$77,077.91 on Tuesday (May 7) in the State Courts. The prosecution had sought a jail term of four to eight weeks, in addition to the financial penalties.

He had pleaded guilty to two tax evasion charges under the Income Tax Act, and one charge under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Act of failing to register for GST when one of their companies’ revenue crossed S$1 million in 2006.

He and his younger brother, 57-year-old Shui Poh Chung, inherited minimart Shanghai Moh Lee Seng from their father in 1999 after he died. They ran it till February 2012 when it ceased business operations.

The brothers then set up Seng Chung Trading, which is behind the popular Ah Seng Durian stall at Ghim Moh.

The older Shui, as the managing partner of the minimarts, was in charge of the accounts and record-keeping. A District Judge last week cited this factor as the reason that a custodial sentence was warranted for him.

The younger Shui was last week fined S$10,000 on top of a penalty of S$46,303.14. The penalty represented double the amount of taxes undercharged in relation to the two tax evasion charges to which he pleaded guilty.

The court earlier heard that the brothers, who are Singaporeans, were equal partners in sharing their businesses’ profits.

Shui Poh Sing’s lawyer, Mr Vinit Chhabra, said that the older brother took charge of the accounts and record keeping of the companies when their father’s accountant retired. He had no formal training in accountancy so the accounts were done in an “informal and unsophisticated way”, the lawyer said.

Senior Tax Prosecutor Patrick Nai told the court this was why investigations into their tax evasion had dragged on for four and a half years. The accounts were “not properly kept at all”.

Many documents were discarded after Shanghai Moh Lee Seng closed in 2012 following an en bloc sale, he noted. Seng Chung Trading, which sells seasonal fruits such as durians, was registered to take over that business.

However, despite the disorderly accounts, Mr Nai stressed that Shui Poh Sing knew the amount of income declared between 2008 and 2014 was “way below” what they were earning.

For instance, he omitted more than S$93,000 in earnings in 2008 and this grew to S$103,592.11 in 2014. For these two years, he underpaid close to S$9,000 and S$13,900 in taxes respectively.

The undeclared income earned from the sale of durians by Seng Chung Trading was used to finance mortgage payments for the brothers’ properties in Malaysia, the prosecutor added.

Mr Nai also noted that Shui Poh Sing was required under the GST Act to notify the Comptroller of GST of Shanghai Moh Lee Seng’s liability to register for GST by Jan 31, 2007, but he failed to do so until investigations began