Record fine
Chinese influencer has to pay a fine of 186 million euros – but is it really all about taxes?
Huang Wei reaches 120 million people through its channels
© CHINATOPIX / AP / DPA
The mega influencer Wei Ya is said to have evaded more than 90 million euros in taxes. Now comes the fat punishment of her homeland China. But there may be more to it than that.
These are numbers that leave you breathless: Thanks to her more than 120 million followers, influencer Huang Wei under the pseudonym Wei Ya is said to have turned over 4.3 billion euros this year alone. Now she is catching up with the long hand of the state: Her homeland China has given her a record fine. But another measure is likely to hit them even harder. And indicates that there is more to the authorities.
The allegations are serious: by concealing the origin of a large part of their income, the Internet personality is said to have evaded almost 643 million Chinese yuan in taxes, according to a report by the Chinese tax authorities on Monday. That corresponds to around 90 million euros. As a punishment, she has now been given an unprecedentedly high penalty in this area: Wei has to transfer 1.341 billion yuan (about 186 million euros) to the state.
Live shopping as super hype
Wei is the most successful representative of the currently largest Chinese Internet hype: Shopping there is increasingly shifting away from traditional retail stores and online trading in live streams from Internet celebrities. Similar to TV shopping channels, they advertise the products on their extremely wide-reaching profiles in live appearances – and also sell them themselves. And Wei is one of the most successful: its streams regularly reach 10 million people at the same time.
This year’s Singles Day shows how successful this concept is. The country’s biggest shopping day has long since overshadowed its Western model, Black Friday. Retail giant Alibaba, which launched the day in 2009, took in 65 billion euros this year alone in the special campaign days that have now lasted almost three weeks. And Wei Ya also set success records as part of the Single Day: She is said to have sold products worth 1.15 billion euros – and that alone in a single live stream on the evening of October 20th.
Strike against fan culture
Wei’s punishment may be the highest so far, but it is not the only one. It was not until September that fines totaling several million euros were imposed on two other live streamers, before two actors had gone online to the tax authorities. In fact, there should be more to it than that. This is also indicated by the part of the penalty that is likely to hit Wei the hardest: She not only has to pay the evaded taxes, a fine and fees. The state has also deleted all of their accounts.
That fits into an ongoing campaign by the Chinese state. Since the summer, the government has been increasingly taking action against the supposedly immoral leisure activities of the younger generation in particular, tackling the hype, video games and social media in order to prevent the youth from becoming “effeminate”. Above all, the extreme admiration of celebrities and influencers is a thorn in the side of government agencies. And not without reason. Fans are also ready for extreme acts for their idols. It is impossible to imagine if these would begin to express themselves politically at some point.
Sources:Chinese tax authority, Protocol, WWD