IPOH: A total of 36 suspected members of a notorious secret society were recently arrested, crippling the group known as Gang 04, Malaysian police said on Monday (Feb 19) .
The nationwide operation dubbed Op Cantas Silver began on Jan 27 and involved suspected members aged between 20 and 60, including one holding the honorific title of Datuk.
Twenty-six were picked up in Perak, Selangor, Malacca and Johor, while the rest were rounded up in Pokok Sena, Kedah, Taiping and Batu Gajah in Perak, as well as Sungai Udang, Melaka.
Perak police chief Hasnan Hassan said the operation was mounted following a series of violent incidents including the murder of a woman with the honorific title of Datin Seri.
The murder occurred in front of a restaurant in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur on Jul 6, 2016. In another case, a man was killed utan Melintang, Bagan Datuk in Perak in November 2016.
"The long-running secret society had been involved in organised crime and other criminal activities involving robbery, extortion, arson and drug trafficking," Perak's police chief told a press conference at the state police contingent headquarters in Ipoh on Monday.
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He said Bukit Aman's Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) crime investigation team also froze and seized assets belonging to the group worth RM4.5 million, which covered vehicles, property, jewellery, valuable items, bank accounts and cash.
"The police are in the midst of tracking down 10 members of the group who have fled. Interpol assistance will be sought if the suspects go into hiding abroad," he added.
According to Hasnan, all the suspects were remanded for 28 days from Jan 27 under Section 4 (5) of the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (SOSMA).
The case was also investigated under Section 4 (1) of the Anti Money Laundering Act, Anti Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001 (AMLATFPUAA) 2001.
Hasnan said the 36 suspects would be charged at the Ipoh Sessions Court on Tuesday under Section 130 V of the Penal Code and Section 130 W of the Penal Code for being members of the group and assisting an organised crime group.
SINGAPORE: A 59-year-old rope skipping coach was convicted on Tuesday (Feb 20) of raping his 13-year-old student at his Tampines home in 2008 and 2009.
Roger Yue Jr, then the president of Rope Skipping Singapore, was also convicted of sexually assaulting the teenager on multiple occasions. He used the handle of a skipping rope and a vibrator on the girl, and made her perform oral sex on him.
Yue was convicted of seven charges – two of rape and five of sexual penetration of a minor – after a seven-day trial, at which the victim, now 22, testified against him.
Yue had sexually abused the girl for two years, from 2008 until 2010, though she waited five years to report the abuse to the police. This years-long delay “gave me some pause", Justice Aedit Abdullah said.
“I accept that victims of sexual assault or abuse may not behave in a stereotypical way,” Justice Aedit said. "The thinking process … of a juvenile victim may lead to a course of action that may appear unreasonable … (but) the court must be mindful (of this) and should not measure a child by adult standards," he added.
However, the delayed reporting of the office could have "robbed the victim of the strength of the support that is to be obtained from early reporting", Justice Aedit said, as early reports “give strong support to the case against an accused person".
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In this case, the teenager’s evidence alone was not sufficient to convict Yue, Justice Aedit said.
It was Yue’s own statement to a psychiatrist that did him in. Yue had told a psychiatrist that he considered himself to be in a relationship with the teenager and that it was in this context that he committed the sexual acts.
"Taken together with the victim’s testimony, there was sufficient evidence (to convict Yue)," Justice Aedit said. Whether the teenager consented to the sexual acts is "irrelevant" because she was a juvenile victim, he added.
"I accept the (victim’s) evidence that the sexual acts were committed through what was at least cajoling, if not pressure, by (Yue)," Justice Aedit said.
Yue is on bail of S$70,000 pending a sentencing hearing on Mar 21.
He faces up to 20 years' jail for each charge of rape or sexual penetration of a minor under 16. As he is above 50, he cannot be caned.
Another 41 charges against Yue – all involving the same victim – will be dealt with at a later date.
These include more than 20 charges for sexual penetration of a minor and more than 10 charges under the Children and Young Persons Act for committing indecent acts with a child.
In addition to allegedly sexually assaulting the girl in public, including at a public carpark at Tampines, an abandoned building along Lavender Street, the pagoda at Chinese Garden and in the bushes outside Bedok MRT station, Yue is also accused of taking photographs of her in the nude.
On one occasion in 2008 at Lakeside MRT station, Yue allegedly told the girl to change into a tight-fitting dress and to remove her bra and panties.
SINGAPORE: Come Jan 1, 2020, a goods and services tax (GST) will be imposed on imported digital services, Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat announced in his Budget 2018 speech on Monday (Feb 19). This, he explained, is to ensure that imported and local services are “accorded the same treatment”.
With the advent of technology and the digital economy, it has become increasingly common for services consumed in Singapore to be obtained from overseas suppliers that do not have a presence here, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) explained further in a separate media release.
WATCH: If you download apps and music from overseas firms, you will soon have to pay GST as it’s considered an “imported service”. #SGBudget2018 https://t.co/tv6boF0C6Y pic.twitter.com/rtLiiG9stl — Channel NewsAsia (@ChannelNewsAsia) February 19, 2018
So what does this latest announcement mean? What will be the impact on consumers and service providers? We shed light on some of these questions.
Q: Which businesses will be impacted by this announcement?
The GST on digital services targets two categories of services: Business-to-business (B2B) types such as marketing, accounting, IT and management, as well as business-to-consumers (B2C) ones such as video and music streaming, apps, listing fees on electronic marketplaces, software and online subscription fees.
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Q: What is overseas vendor registration?
The overseas vendor registration is required for B2C imported services, which means service providers and electronic marketplace operators such as app stores will need to be registered with the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS).
Specifically, those required to register are vendors whose annual turnover exceeds S$1 million and the sale of digital services to consumers in Singapore exceeds S$100,000.
Q: How will this tax impact B2C digital service providers?
According to Mr Adrian Lee, research director at Gartner, these providers will face increased operational costs for compliance with the new tax regime. They will need to ramp up to handle GST reconciliation with IRAS once they cross the S$100,000 threshold, he explained.
“Coupled with the proposed increase in GST to 9 per cent across all businesses from 2021, this hits the digital service providers domiciled both in and outside of Singapore with additional margin pressures as they strive to remain profitable,” Mr Lee said.
“Needless to say, this will dampen the growth of digital services in Singapore but should not constrain it, as consumers progressively digitise their services.”
He did note that it was a “positive sign” that the Government is giving these digital businesses early notice before implementing the tax.
About 1,000 companies offering B2B digital services, as well as 100 firms in the B2C space, are expected to be affected by the new tax, Channel NewsAsia understands.
Netflix and Google declined to comment for this story.
Q: How will this tax impact consumers?
It’s hard to tell, given that it will be a company's prerogative to decide how much of the tax it wants to apportion to consumers.
Ms Gan Hwee Leng, tax partner at KPMG Singapore, pointed out that the implementation of GST for imported services aligns Singapore’s GST framework with those of other countries, and puts local and overseas service providers on a level playing field.
“(However, this) translates to higher cost for local consumers,” she said.
Mr Lee said that in Gartner’s research findings, 59 per cent of Singaporeans have reported purchasing a product or service online, and B2C apps such as Grab, Uber and Spotify occupy the top 10 spots with the most monthly active users.
When implemented, Singaporeans may choose to lower their spending on taxable digital services that may be difficult to replace such as ride-hailing apps like Uber, or switch to services that are not taxed, the research director predicted.
“I do not think consumers will stop buying online. They will simply choose to spend more prudently,” Mr Lee said.
Q: When will more details on GST for digital services be revealed?
The finance ministry said IRAS will release draft e-tax guides by the end of this month.
SINGAPORE: With an eye on the long run, Budget 2018 was a forward-looking budget filled with sharpened tools that would likely “pack more punch” in terms of helping local firms transform for the years to come.
There were, however, areas where more could be done, said economists, tax experts and representatives from the local trade associations and chambers (TACs).
Speaking on Monday (Feb 19), Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat in his Budget statement unveiled a suite of measures aimed at businesses, including a handful of near-term help for companies to cope with rising costs and targeted relief for the underperforming marine shipyard and process sectors.
But the bulk of initiatives remained on longer-term transformation strategies that will help Singapore businesses innovate, build capabilities and expand overseas.
Among them were a streamlined grant to help firms adopt off-the-shelf solutions called the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG), the pilot of a virtual crowd-sourcing platform to "matchmake" companies to ICT firms and research institutes, and a new Enterprise Development Grant.
This focus on pushing firms to innovate and transform for the future is in line with expectations, given how faster-than-expected growth last year has brushed concerns of a slower economy out of the way.
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The Singapore Business Federation (SBF), for one, said it welcomed the “growth-oriented measures in Budget 2018 to help companies transform and grow” amid an increasingly positive economic outlook.
Describing the Budget as “well-considered and visionary”, chairman Teo Siong Seng said it is “in businesses’ interests to leverage the Budget measures to transform and ride on the anticipated growth momentum”.
In particular, the Capabilities Transfer Programme, which will be piloted to support the transfer of skills from foreign specialists to Singaporean trainers and trainees, would be “vital in helping companies to transform”, SBF’s Mr Teo elaborated.
Mr Roland Ng, president of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SCCCI), noted that this year’s Budget laid the foundation to strengthen Singapore’s economy and companies over the longer run.
Initiatives aimed at helping companies transform through productivity improvement and innovation, as well as incentives for larger firms to partner small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), also showed that the Government has responded to industry feedback and recommendations, Mr Ng added.
Echoing similar sentiment, KPMG Singapore’s tax partner Harvey Koenig said the Government has answered the call of Singapore businesses to support innovation with the enhancement of the research and development (R&D) tax incentive and enhanced deductions for intellectual property (IP) registration and licensing.
“These schemes compare well with (those of) other countries, and encourage businesses to embark on continuous and sustained innovation which is critical in the face of increased digital disruption”.
Taken together with other existing measures to spur innovation, such as the Industry Transformation Maps (ITMs), the new initiatives will enhance Singapore’s position as a global innovation hub, according to Mr Koenig.
DBS economist Irvin Seah lauded the enhancements to existing schemes, such as the Wage Credit Scheme, Corporate Income Tax rebate and the Double Tax Deduction for Internationalisation, as a good move.
Apart from how the various tax deductibles would encourage companies to invest in capabilities and technologies, it marked a “visible shift away from overly generous and broad-based” subsidy programmes, such as the Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) scheme, towards “more specific and innovation-focused measures”.
Mr Seah told Channel NewsAsia that this refinement process is akin to “sharpening the tip” of the Government’s policies, and will ensure that measures now “pack more punch”.
For CIMB economist Song Seng Wun, Budget 2018 was “another pragmatic Budget” with “tweaks around the edges” to ensure fiscal sustainability and the continued growth of businesses in Singapore.
"It’s about ensuring Singapore remains competitive, that our labour force and companies are prepared for both today and the future,” he said.
EARLY GST HIKE ANNOUNCEMENT SOFTENS BLOW TO BUSINESSES
In another helpful move, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) hike from 7 to 9 per cent, slated to take hold sometime from 2021 to 2025, can be considered an early announcement that will soften the eventual blow, added Mr Song.
Agreeing, Nomura economist Brian Tan said the early notice would give businesses time to adjust as the GST increase will eventually translate to a rise in costs.
In particular, the retail and food and beverage (F&B) sectors tend to take a bigger hit as “their margins are a bit thinner” and the limitations they face when it comes to passing on costs.
As such, the delayed increase will be a “short-term positive” for the retail sector, according to Ms Tay Huey Ying, head of research and consultancy at investment firm JLL.
“Not only will the nascent recovery in consumer spending not be prematurely derailed, it could actually boost spending ahead of the increase in GST,” she added. “This should bring cheers to retailers ... and their focus on raising productivity and investing in technology can continue without distractions.”
"They should be in a better position to cope with the impact of the increase in GST to 9 per cent when implemented three years or more from now."
SBF chairman Mr Teo agreed, commenting: “We acknowledge the reason behind the increase in GST and appreciate the advance notice for businesses to plan ahead.”
WHAT MORE COULD BE DONE
Nonetheless, Mr Seah said Budget 2018 could have contained more details on how to strengthen the ITMs.
Ahead of the Budget, the 23 industry-specific roadmaps, which were first announced in Budget 2016 as part of a S$4.5 billion industry transformation programme, had come under the spotlight amid questions from business and industry leaders about its relevance.
In his Budget statement, Mr Heng said the ITMs, which make up one of the key strategies outlined in the Committee on the Future Economy (CFE) report, will take a more “cluster-based approach” to reap synergies and strengthen linkages across multiple industries, as well as explore new opportunities.
While there were a slew of measures unveiled, Mr Seah said they were “broadly in line with the economic transformation efforts” but not specifically targeted at the ITMs.
“For it to be truly effective, the ITMs have to be taken up at a micro-industry level and that’s where the partnerships between the TACs and policymakers will be crucial,” the DBS economist told Channel NewsAsia.
“What they need to do is to facilitate the implementation of the ITMs across the industries and help the companies implement all those changes,” said Mr Seah, who added that he will be keeping an eye out for more details about the “concrete implementation” of the ITMs moving ahead.
Meanwhile, experts from Ernst & Young Solutions highlighted the need for more to be done to help loss-making firms, start-ups and SMEs.
Partner of tax services Chai Wai Fook pointed out that apart from the extension of the Wage Credit Scheme, there were no measures in Budget 2018 to help loss-making companies, where cash is key to their survival.
Mr Chester Wee, EY’s partner of international tax services, suggested that the Partial Tax Exemption be restricted to only small firms, instead of reducing the amount which is currently applicable to all companies.
Businesses affected by the carbon tax, which will be implemented next year, will also need support from grant schemes when it comes to improving their energy efficiency, said SCCCI’s Mr Ng.
SMEs, in particular, can do with some help to mitigate the impact.
