《TAIPEI TIMES》 China’s ‘queen’ of online sales fined for tax evasion

/ Reuters, BEIJING

China’s “queen of livestreaming” has been fined 1.34 billion yuan （US$210.3 million） for tax evasion, authorities said on Monday.

Internet celebrity Viya, whose real name is Huang Wei （黃薇）, was fined for hiding personal income and other offenses in 2019 and last year, the tax bureau in Hangzhou said.

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She later apologized.

“I’m deeply sorry about my violations of the tax laws and regulations,” she wrote on Sina Weibo. “I thoroughly accept the punishment made by the tax authorities.”

Viya, 36, is known for her ability to sell “anything” via livestreaming on the Taobao Live platform. Last year, she sold a rocket launch service for 40 million yuan.

During the Singles’ Day online shopping festival, she sold products worth a total of 8.5 billion yuan in one evening, media reports said.

Viya is the latest celebrity livestreamer to get caught up in a broad crackdown that initially targeted technology firms, but has since gone on to take aim at private education, social media platforms and the culture of celebrity.

Before the crackdown, tax evasion had already sunk the career of several well-known figures in the entertainment industry.

However, Viya represents a new generation of celebrities, whose meteoric rise to fame has been powered by the equally dizzying growth of China’s e-commerce sector, many aspects of which have come under regulatory scrutiny.

Two e-commerce livestreaming influencers were reported to be under investigation for personal tax evasion last month and were together fined nearly 100 million yuan. Their livestreaming services have since closed.

Viya was scheduled to conduct a livestreaming at 7pm on Monday, focusing on cosmetics. A check of her Taobao livestreaming studio showed that a reminder for the event had been removed.

Viya’s accounts on Sina Weibo, Taobao Live and Douyin went offline late on Monday.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES