SG15160 | Introduction and the law: the law on security: Value Added Tax: power to proceed against company directors, officers, shadow directors, etc

Under section 171(4) of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979, a company director, manager, secretary or other officer, or any other person acting in that capacity, may be held personally liable for an offence committed in the name of a limited company. The offence, which includes an offence under section 72(11) of the Value Added Tax Act 1994, must have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or be attributed to neglect on the part of, any such person.

171(4) Where an offence under any enactment relating to an assigned matter which has been committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to be attributed to any neglect on the part of, any director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate or any person purporting to act in any such capacity, he as well as the body corporate shall be guilty of that offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.

In this subsection ‘director’, in relation to any body corporate established by or under any enactment for the purpose of carrying or under national ownership any industry or part of an industry or undertaking, being a body corporate whose affairs are managed by the members thereof, means a member of that body corporate.