Goods and Services Tax Act - Singapore Statutes Online

Power of Comptroller to obtain information and furnishing of information

84.—(1) The Comptroller or any officer authorised by him in that behalf —

(a)

shall at all times have full and free access to all buildings, places, documents, computers, computer programs and computer software (whether installed in a computer or otherwise) for any of the purposes of this Act;

(b)

shall have access to any information, code or technology which has the capability of retransforming or unscrambling encrypted data contained in or available to such computers into readable and comprehensive format or text for any of the purposes of this Act;

(c)

shall be entitled —

(i)	without fee or reward, to inspect, copy or make extracts from any such document, computer, computer program, computer software or computer output; and
(ii)	at any reasonable time to inspect and check the operation of any computer, device, apparatus or material which is or has been in use in connection with anything to which this section applies;

(d)

may take possession of any such document, computer, device, apparatus, material, computer program or computer software where in his opinion —

(i)	the inspection, checking, copying thereof or extraction therefrom cannot reasonably be performed without taking possession;
(ii)	any such items may be interfered with or destroyed unless possession is taken; or
(iii)	any such items may be required as evidence in proceedings for an offence under this Act or in proceedings for the recovery of tax or penalty, or in proceedings by way of an appeal against an assessment; and

(e)

shall be entitled to require —

(i)	the person by whom or on whose behalf the computer is or has been used, or any person having charge of, or otherwise concerned with the operation of the computer, device, apparatus or material, to provide the Comptroller or officer with such reasonable assistance as he may require for the purposes of this section; and
(ii)	any person in possession of decryption information to grant him access to such decryption information necessary to decrypt data required for the purposes of this section. [43/2002]

(2) The Comptroller may require any person to give orally or in writing, as may be required, all such information concerning his or any other person’s transactions made in the course of a business as may be demanded of him by the Comptroller for the purposes of this Act.

(3) No person shall, by virtue of this section, be obliged to disclose any particulars which he is under any statutory obligation to observe secrecy.

(4) The Minister may by regulations make provision for requiring taxable persons to notify the Comptroller of such particulars of changes in circumstances relating to those persons or any business carried on by them as appear to the Comptroller to be required for the purpose of keeping the register kept under this Act up to date.

(5) In this section, “document” has the same meaning as in section 81.

[Income Tax 1992 Ed., s. 65B; UK VAT Act 1983, Sch. 7 Para. 8 (1); UK FA 1985, s. 10 (2)]

[43/2002]

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