Ex-owner of Kay Lee Roast Meat and wife convicted of tax evasion

THE former owner of popular roast meat stall Kay Lee Roast Meat Joint, Ha Wai Kay, and his wife Kong Kuee Chin, have been convicted of tax evasion.

Ha, 64, the sole proprietor of Kay Lee, knowingly underpaid the taxman S$54,917.15 for years of assessment 2010 and 2011, said the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) in a release on Monday.

He was sentenced to four weeks' jail and ordered to pay a penalty of $164,751.45, three times the amount of tax evaded.

Kong, 69, who was the sole proprietor of Wan Tat Eating House, was convicted of helping her husband evade taxes.

She was responsible for recording sales amounts for both Kay Lee and Wan Tat. She would manually record the daily cash collections and expenditures into her diary, and provide a total monthly sales income for both businesses in one lump sum on slips of paper to their accountant responsible for preparing tax returns.

For both years of assessment 2010 and 2011, Kong would give estimated numbers for Wan Tat to their accountant to deduct from the combined numbers she provided, to derive Kay Lee's numbers.

Iras said Kong had knowingly under declared more than S$325,000 in sales income in the two years of assessment by providing false sales income figures. Actual sales income was S$693,839 in YA2010 and S$829,335 in YA2011. She was found guilty and convicted of assisting Ha to evade taxes. She was also sentenced to four weeks' jail and ordered to pay a penalty of $164,751.45, three times the amount of tax evaded, for assisting in the tax evasion.

Kay Lee was sold for S$4 million to Aztech Group in 2014, in part due to the high value of the freehold shop space it was in.

Aztech shares last traded at S$0.31 a share.