For the first time, China’s tax authorities have disclosed a case of tax recovery actions launched against a weblebrity. A web-celebrity anchor in Zhengzhou City has been recovered RMB 6.62 million in taxes by the tax authorities, and the web-celebrity has paid the outstanding taxes.
After celebrity entertainers in show business, weblebrities have been included as a new target of tax investigation by the authorities. According to the Zhengzhou Evening News, the Zhengzhou Jinshui District Taxation Bureau recently used big data to realize automatic data extraction from information systems to increase tax collection and management for practitioners in the entertainment sector, and recovered 6.624 million yuan in taxes from a web-celebrity. According to the First Financial Report, several financial and taxation experts said that this is the first time that the General Administration of Taxation made public the case of tax evasion by network anchors, and this case was also disclosed to the public in the inspection, which is actually a declaration that the recent taxation department launched the taxation inspection of network anchors into a substantial stage.
Screenshot from “Zhengzhou Evening News
In an interview with Radio Free Asia this Tuesday, Bi Xin, a current affairs commentator familiar with China’s personal income taxation, said that officials have known for a long time that most netizens have alleged tax evasion cases, but have never taken large-scale action, and this time they intend to strike hard.
“The state has long known that netroots taxation is a vacuum, and now the first stage is to clear a group of netroots, but this does not meet the requirements of the state harvest, and the clearance may be limited to a small part, so he (the tax bureau) still wants to harvest a large area, and many netroots are starting to pay attention to the legality of each profit link. Some time ago, we saw the use of some celebrity artists have written off their studios, which has a lot to do with taxation.”
Recovery of huge taxes on Netflix “to kill one example”
The case of netizens in Zhengzhou being taxed nearly 6.7 million yuan has been made public, and Bi Xin believes it has the effect of “making an example of a hundred”, and he expects that in the next three months, there will be a group of network anchors being chased by the tax bureau to pay tax arrears. He said that with the big data, it is highly unlikely that celebrity artists and web stars will find ways to evade taxes.
“They have turned from the original approved taxation into (the tax bureau) checking taxation, for example, the star Wang a year income of 100 million yuan, if you take the approved levy, the actual should pay 10 million yuan, according to 5% to 35% personal tax excess tax rate, the actual tax paid about 3.4 million yuan, so the tax department to take checking taxation, certainly this time to righteous checking tax collection is the main. “
(Screenshot from the official website of the State Administration of Taxation)
Netflix income can be taxed far more than celebrity entertainers
Zhang Shengqi, a businessman who was engaged in webcasting many years ago, said in an interview with this station that if the tax bureau checks the income of weblebrities, the taxable income is far more than that of celebrity artists, because the number of celebrity artists is limited, while weblebrities broadcast hundreds of thousands of live broadcasts. He said.
“From 2016 to the end of 2018 and the first half of 2019, there is a Netflix Today website, and magazine statistics on all the netflix on China’s webcasting platforms, who are the most profitable and how much money they make each year, all with statistics and records. These weblebrities are the ‘head anchors’, and these few weblebrities drive the profit of the whole company. There are also a lot of ‘waist anchors’ below, and ‘leg anchors’.”
The “head anchor”, “waist anchor” a wide range of names
The actual “head anchor” is the anchor that has a lot of fans and gold owners with high gift earnings. The “waist anchor” is the anchor whose gift income is average but higher than other anchors’ gift brush. The live streaming platform will pay the hosts according to their popularity per hour. For example, if the hourly popularity is above 100,000, how much will be paid for one hour.
The General Office of the State Administration of Taxation of China issued a notice two weeks ago proposing to regularly carry out tax risk analysis, one-on-one risk tips and supervise the rectification of star artists and network anchors with tax-related risks. Among them, those with serious circumstances should be seriously investigated and punished according to law.
In late August, the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Taxation took on star artist Zheng Shuang for alleged tax evasion. A total of 299 million yuan was imposed for tax recovery and additional late payment fees. in September, the State Administration of Taxation of China opened a case against two anchors and related companies. It was found that both anchors were suspected of illegally converting their personal income into business income, making false declarations to underpay personal income tax, and involving large amounts of tax. The case is still under investigation.
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