KUALA LUMPUR: A company director was fined a total of RM49,500 or 33 months imprisonment, by the Magistrate’s Court here yesterday for failing to remit payment in monthly income tax deduction of his employees to the Inland Revenue Board (LHDN) between 2013 and 2015.
Magistrate Zuhair Rosli meted out the fine on Roger David Weston Gumbrell, 70, after finding that the prosecution had succeeded in establishing the case beyond any reasonable doubts at the end of the defence case.
In the judgement, Zuhair said the offence committed by Gumbrell was serious and the punishment meted was as a lesson and to educate the society, especially employers, in discharging their responsibilities for their employees.
Gumbrell was charged with 33 counts of failing to pay to the LHDN Director-General the amount of tax payment made in monthly salary deduction by his employees without valid reason, which is a violation of Rules 10 (1) of the income Tax (Deduction from Remuneration) Rules 1994.
The offence was committed between January 2013 and December 2015, involving RM238,122.
The court fined him RM1,500 or one-month jail on each count, and Gumbrell was also ordered to pay RM46,387 to LHDN within two months from yesterday, failing which a warrant of levy would be imposed.
In mitigation, lawyer Terence Phillips, representing Gumbrell, said his client had been operating his business in Malaysia since 2002 and it was his first offence.
Prosecuting officer Noor Akhmar Mohd Khatli, who prosecuted, had requested for Gumbrell to be sent to prison as he had committed a criminal breach of trust and created inconvenience and problems to his workers.
The workers had also been detained by the Immigration when they wanted to go overseas, she said. — Bernama