The Chinese “livestream queen” Huang Wei has to pay the equivalent of 186 million euros for tax offenses. The drastic punishment for the influencer, who appears on the Internet under the name Viya, caused a big stir on Tuesday. The party organ “People’s Daily” spoke of a “warning” for other famous personalities in the booming e-commerce business that “their websites are not outside the law”.
The 35-year-old has evaded 643 million yuan in taxes by withholding or incorrectly declaring income, the tax office of the east Chinese city of Hangzhou said. Huang Wei’s 1.34 billion yuan tax fine is the highest ever for a livestream star. It also exceeds the 884 million yuan that famous actress Fan Bingbing paid to the tax authorities in 2018.
The action is part of an ongoing campaign by the authorities against celebrities and show business in China. With her countless followers, Huang Wei is the star of the influencer community as she can mobilize up to ten million viewers for one of her online shows to promote products. According to estimates by industry experts, it should have generated more than 31 billion yuan (€ 4.3 billion) in sales in 2020 – more than any other Internet size.
The penalty will send “shock waves” through the live stream industry, wrote the Hong Kong “South China Morning Post” on Tuesday. Huang Wei and her husband Dong Haifeng accepted the sentence and apologized in a message on the Weibo short message service: “We made a big mistake.”
The thriving livestream industry in China has gained additional momentum with the pandemic. This year, according to estimates by market researchers, sales will reach 1.2 trillion yuan – four years ago it was only 19 billion yuan. (dpa)