From the bottom of the violet to evade taxes: "investment vane" was fined 1.3 billion, and the anchor paid tax storm

As 2021 draws to a close, the live streaming industry has once again ushered in big news.

Following the penalty for tax evasion by anchor Sydney (Zhu Chenhui), on December 20, according to the official website of the Hangzhou Municipal Taxation Bureau of the State Administration of Taxation, anchor Wei Ya (formerly known as Huang Wei) evaded taxes of 643 million yuan and other underpayment of taxes by concealing personal income, fictitious business conversion income and false declarations of the nature of income between 2019 and 2020.

The relevant person in charge of the Inspection Bureau of the Hangzhou Municipal Taxation Bureau said that after the analysis and assessment of the big data analysis of taxation, It was found that Wei Ya was suspected of major tax evasion, and after repeated reminders and supervision by the tax authorities, the rectification was not complete, so it was filed in accordance with laws and regulations and carried out a comprehensive and in-depth tax inspection.

According to insiders in the tax department, although the anchor Sydney is the first anchor in the live broadcast with goods industry to be disclosed to have evaded taxes, Wei Ya and other head anchors were also investigated earlier, because of the large amount of the association and the wide impact, the tax department specially sent a special office team to the company where the head anchors such as Qianxun were stationed to handle it.

The relevant person in charge of the Inspection Bureau of the Hangzhou Municipal Taxation Bureau said that the tax department investigated and dealt with the tax violations of relevant network anchors in accordance with laws and regulations, which is conducive to the long-term standardized and healthy development of the platform economy. At the same time, the tax department will conscientiously implement various preferential tax policies, continue to optimize tax services, and create a good tax business environment for the development of the platform economy.

On December 20, in response to the tax evasion incident, Via posted an apology letter on her personal Weibo, the full text of which is as follows:

By concealing the false declaration of commission income, Via was punished for tax evasion of more than 1.3 billion yuan

According to the relevant person in charge of the Inspection Bureau of the Hangzhou Municipal Taxation Bureau, from 2019 to 2020, Wei Ya evaded taxes by concealing the commission income she obtained from the live broadcast platform; through the establishment of a number of sole proprietorships and partnerships such as the Shanghai Weihe Enterprise Management Consulting Center and the Shanghai Dusu Enterprise Management Consulting Partnership, the income from labor remuneration such as commissions and pit fees obtained by her personal engaging in live streaming was converted into enterprise operating income to false declarations and evaded taxes Engaging in other production and business activities to obtain income, but failing to declare and pay taxes in accordance with law.

In accordance with the provisions of the Individual Income Tax Law of the People's Republic of China and the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Administration of Tax Collection, the tax authorities confirmed that they had evaded taxes of 643 million yuan and other underpaid taxes by 0.6 billion yuan.

According to the official website of the Hangzhou Municipal Taxation Bureau of the State Administration of Taxation, in the process of tax investigation, Wei Ya was able to cooperate and take the initiative to pay back the tax of 500 million yuan, and at the same time take the initiative to report tax-related violations that the tax authorities have not yet mastered.

Taking the above situation into account, the Inspection Bureau of the Hangzhou Municipal Taxation Bureau of the State Administration of Taxation pursued Wei Ya in accordance with the Provisions of the Individual Income Tax Law of the People's Republic of China, the Tax Collection and Administration Law of the People's Republic of China, the Administrative Punishment Law of the People's Republic of China and other relevant laws and regulations, and in accordance with the Discretionary Standards for Tax Administrative Penalties in Zhejiang Province, weiya was recovered from taxes, charged late fees and imposed fines totaling 1.341 billion yuan. Among them, 319 million yuan was imposed on 500 million yuan of hidden income that evaded taxes but voluntarily paid back, and 0.6 times the underpayment of taxes reported on the initiative was 319 million yuan; 0.27 billion yuan of hidden income was evaded but did not take the initiative to pay back; 109 million yuan was fined 109 million yuan for evasion of tax evasion by 116 million yuan for the nature of fictitious business conversion income. A few days ago, the Inspection Bureau of the Hangzhou Municipal Taxation Bureau has sent a tax administrative treatment penalty decision to Wei Ya in accordance with the law.

Previously, Sydney and Lin Shanshan, for evading taxes, would be recovered from taxes, collect late fees and fined 65.5531 million yuan and 27.6725 million yuan respectively, which attracted widespread attention from all walks of life. According to insiders in the tax department, Sydney is not the first and not the only head anchor to be investigated, Wei Ya and other head anchors were also investigated earlier, because of the large amount of the association and the wide impact, the tax department specially sent a special office team to enter the company where the head anchors such as Qianxun were located to handle it.

Not only Sydney, Via, but also well-known anchors have long been investigated and chased for tax. All parties are still discussing the appropriate time to announce, and the specific penalties are not announced on the same day as the above-mentioned anchors.

Earlier, after Sydney was first announced as a "typical" of tax evasion in the live broadcast with the goods industry, all parties discussed the punishment of the relevant head anchor, and the tax department insider said, "If it is not announced, others will also have opinions, why only say Sydney, after all, Sydney is not the largest (head)".

The relevant person in charge of the Hangzhou Municipal Taxation Bureau said that the tax department will continue to strengthen the tax supervision of practitioners in the online live broadcasting industry, and conduct joint inspections of relevant brokerage companies and brokers, online platform enterprises, intermediary institutions, etc. that assist in tax evasion, seriously investigate and deal with tax-related violations in accordance with the law, effectively improve the compliance of tax laws, and create a fair tax environment based on the rule of law.

He was once appointed as a "Network Integrity Publicity Ambassador", and the company behind the company humbled the actual controller as Wei Ya's husband

Wei Ya is the anchor of Qianxun Holdings (hereinafter referred to as Qianxun), the main company of Qianxun Group is Qianxun (Hangzhou) Holdings Co., Ltd., the legal representative is Weiya's husband Dong Haifeng, and the registered capital of the company exceeds 20 million yuan. According to the enterprise investigation of equity penetration, Dong Haifeng holds 46.1204% of the shares, seeking the majority shareholder and actual controller for humility.

According to the enterprise investigation, dong Haifeng currently has a total of 25 affiliated enterprises, serving in 23 companies and serving as the legal representative of 20 companies. There are 18 affiliated enterprises in Weiya, serving in 7 companies and serving as the legal representative of 12 companies.

Founded on April 28, 2017, Qianxun currently has more than 50 anchors under the company, including anchors Wei Ya, Beibei Rabbit, Teng Yujia, etc.; star anchors Lin Yilun, Li Jing, Haiqing, Li Xiang, Dazuo, Li Ai, Gao Lu, etc., covering beauty, life, clothing and other categories, Taobao fans tens of millions.

According to the official website, since 2018, Qianxun has repeatedly won many awards such as "Annual TOP Institution", "Tmall Golden Makeup Award" and "2019 Excellent Partner", and has continuously occupied the Ali V Task Agency List and the Top 1 of the Tao List.

Since 2018, Qianxun has been moving in the direction of group management, and currently has a Beijing star live broadcast base and a Hangzhou super supply chain base, and the subsidiary QianYu Entertainment has opened up the channel of traditional entertainment and e-commerce live broadcasting to achieve content monetization, and the subsidiary Qianxi Culture is responsible for IP licensing business.

According to the official website of Qianxun, Wei Ya is the first anchor of Taobao, with 18.9 million Taobao fans and a maximum of 43 million views in a single live broadcast. He has been a leader in many records in the industry and has participated in social welfare activities such as e-commerce poverty alleviation for many times. At the same time, he was awarded the "Chinese Pioneer" by Academician Yuan Longping - seawater rice promotion ambassador, and won the "Alibaba Poverty Alleviation Public Welfare Anchor" for three consecutive years. At the same time, it also won the titles of "Taobao Top Ten Public Welfare Poverty Alleviation Anchors", "2018 Taobao Live Broadcasting Festival Annual TOP Anchors", "2019 Taobao Live Broadcasting Ceremony Annual TOP Anchors" and so on.

Not only that, Wei Ya is also the winner of the National Poverty Alleviation Award, the national March 8th Red Flag Bearer in the fight against the new crown pneumonia epidemic, and the 2021 Online Integrity Publicity Ambassador. Selected into the "2020 Forbes China Celebrity List", "Fortune China's Most Influential Business Women (Future List)", "Time Magazine Top 100 Influential People" and so on.

Wei Ya and the company behind her, Qianxun, have grown up with Taobao Live, but at present, Qianxun's business is not limited to the Taobao platform, and Qianxun has also signed the head anchor of platforms such as Douyin, as well as a number of performing arts stars. Not only does it lay out the platform anchor matrix, but it has also declared that it will be a super supply chain base. Qianxun has also long been transformed from an MCN company into a live broadcast industry chain "group" covering anchor training, global marketing, variety film and television cooperation, and supply chain.

Dip "Wei Ya" will rise, with the goods anchor incarnated as "investment vane"

Not only is it "a sister with goods", Wei Ya's influence has long spread to the capital market, she used several live broadcasts to leverage the market value of a listed company with goods of 3.713 billion, and Wei Ya "accidentally" became a capital market vane. After Mengjie shares announced their cooperation with Wei Ya, they continuously raised seven up and down boards.

But Wei Ya also said in an exclusive interview with the Beijing News shell financial reporter that Wei Ya is only an e-commerce anchor, Wei Ya's job is to recommend good products for everyone in the live broadcast, not the vane of investment, the stock market is risky, please be cautious in investment.

Wei Ya said, "Whether it is a listed company or not, our cooperation with it is from the product, they have good products, there are products that fans need, we will communicate and cooperate." In the future, there may be more commercial cooperation attempts with more companies, all with the aim of enabling companies to provide better products and services to my fans, both listed and unlisted."

In response to the influx of capital into the live streaming industry in previous years, Wei Ya said that the influx of capital is good or bad, on the one hand, capital will accelerate the improvement of the ecological links of the e-commerce live broadcast industry, on the other hand, it will also cause the e-commerce live broadcast to be kidnapped by capital and eager to achieve the virtual fire.

In October last year, Wei Ya won the Dedication Award of the National Poverty Alleviation Award for her long-term outstanding performance in poverty alleviation and agricultural public welfare activities. In the process of helping farmers, Wei Ya also once fell into the public opinion of "helping farmers live broadcast overturning". In this regard, Wei Ya said that because more agricultural products are fresh products, fresh products have always been a headache for e-commerce because of their non-standard products and logistics restrictions, not to mention the instantaneous large number of order processing such as e-commerce live broadcasting. Now the biggest problem of live broadcasting to help farmers is the problem of standardization, including product selection, logistics requirements and after-sales service need to be standardized.

Wei Ya once publicly stated in 2020, "E-commerce live broadcast is less than ten years old, strictly speaking, only 6 years old, or imaginary age, it is understandable that children have things that are not done well, I hope everyone gives him time."

However, the entry of celebrities, the promotion of the epidemic, and the official praise have rapidly "matured" the live broadcast with goods in recent years.

In 2016, live streaming with goods has just emerged, in March 2016 Taobao live broadcast online, in 2018 Taobao e-commerce live broadcast guide transaction has reached 100 billion, and in 2019, live streaming with goods is more on the outlet, only double 11 Taobao live broadcast has been traded 20 billion, vibrato, Kuaishou and so on also rely on short video advantages have entered the game.

In 2020, live streaming with goods has exploded under the stimulation of multiple factors such as the epidemic, and the head platform has continued to tilt resources, and live streaming has almost become the standard of major platforms. In 2021 Double 11, Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya can reach nearly 20 billion yuan in a day, and live streaming with goods continues to break records, and phenomenon-level events occur.

Behind the fast-running industry are all kinds of irregularities. The relevant person in charge of the State Internet Information Office said that as an emerging business model and Internet format, the rapid development momentum in recent years has played an active role in promoting employment, expanding domestic demand, boosting the economy, and poverty alleviation, but at the same time, there have been problems such as live broadcast marketers failing to behave in words and deeds, using minors to live broadcast for profit, failing to fulfill the main responsibility of the platform, false publicity and data fraud, the frequent emergence of counterfeit and shoddy goods, and the difficulty of consumer rights protection and evidence collection.

Live streaming with goods from reckless to the right track, experts: the industry should strengthen digital management

According to iResearch Consulting Research Report, the scale of China's live e-commerce market will exceed 1.2 trillion yuan in 2020, with an annual growth rate of 197.0%, and it is expected that the scale of live e-commerce will exceed 4.9 trillion yuan in 2023. In 2020, the turnover of store broadcasting accounted for 32.1% of the overall live e-commerce, and it is expected to account for nearly 50.0% in 2023. The ecosystem of the live broadcasting industry has been gradually improved.

By the end of 2020, a total of 8,862 live-streaming e-commerce-related enterprises in China had registered, and the number of anchors in the industry had reached 1.234 million.

On November 22, the tax department of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, announced the results of the proposed penalties for tax evasion by network anchors Zhu Chenhui (Sydney) and Lin Shanshan. For evading taxes, the two will be recovered from taxes, collect late fees and fined 65.5531 million yuan and 27.6725 million yuan respectively.

Zhu Chenhui is the Internet celebrity anchor Sydney (Weibo ID: Sydney Cherie), the third anchor in Taobao after Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya, Taobao fans 33.193 million, Lin Shanshan is also an Internet celebrity anchor, Taobao fans are 10.149 million. In the evening, Sydney and Lin Shanshan respectively issued "Apology Letters" to suspend the live broadcast, standardize and rectify.

An informed source from the tax department revealed to the Beijing News Shell financial reporter that the collection behavior of Sydney and others has played a warning role in the emerging industry of anchors with goods, and will further increase the collection of taxes for Internet celebrity anchors with goods in the future. This is conducive to the regulation of this emerging industry, promotes fair competition, and contributes to the realization of common prosperity.

In April this year, the State Internet Information Office, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the State Administration of Taxation, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the State Administration of Radio and Television jointly issued the Administrative Measures for Online Live Broadcasting Marketing (Trial Implementation) (hereinafter referred to as the Measures), which will come into effect on May 25, 2021.

The Measures clarify that live streaming marketing platforms shall establish and complete mechanisms and measures such as registration and cancellation of accounts and live streaming marketing functions, information security management, marketing codes of conduct, protection of minors, protection of consumer rights and interests, protection of personal information, and network and data security management.

The relevant person in charge of the State Internet Information Office said that the "Measures" have innovated in compacting the main responsibility of the platform. The "Measures" pointed out that the first is to put forward precautions in advance, requiring the platform to take preventive measures such as arranging real-time inspections and extending the storage time of live broadcast content for key live broadcast rooms with a large number of fans and a large transaction amount. The second is to pay attention to warnings in the event, requiring platforms to establish risk identification models, and adopt regulatory measures such as pop-up prompts, conspicuous signs, functions, and traffic restrictions for behaviors with high risks and potential impacts on minors' physical and mental health. The third is to emphasize punishment after the fact, requiring platforms to take measures such as blocking live broadcasts, closing accounts, blacklisting, and joint disciplinary action for violations of laws and regulations.

Live streaming is undoubtedly an emerging format that has erupted in recent years. Before the anchors Zhu Chenhui (Sydney) and Lin Shanshan evaded taxes, the industry had not disclosed such a large number of regulatory cases, and the live streaming industry took off after many years of incubation, took off from the epidemic and went to the peak of the industry, receiving a lot of attention along the way, and also attracted regulatory attention due to related violations of laws and regulations.

The relevant person in charge of the Inspection Bureau of the Hangzhou Municipal Taxation Bureau said that the platform economy is a new format of economic development, which has played an active role in better meeting consumer needs, promoting the transformation of new and old kinetic energy, and promoting high-quality economic development. In the process of rapid development of the platform economy, the tax violations of some network anchors have disrupted the order of tax collection and management and undermined the market environment of fair competition. The tax department investigates and deals with the tax violations of relevant network anchors in accordance with laws and regulations, which is conducive to the long-term standardized and healthy development of the platform economy. At the same time, the tax department will conscientiously implement various preferential tax policies, continue to optimize tax services, and create a good tax business environment for the development of the platform economy.

"Industry governance is nothing more than two means, one is the constraint of the system, and the other is the supervision of technical means." Ouyang Rihui, deputy dean of the China Internet Economy Research Institute of the Central University of Finance and Economics, said that enterprises should put social benefits in the first place, unify social benefits and economic benefits, not only realize the pursuit of profits, but also implement the main responsibility, which is a correct business philosophy and form a win-win situation.

Nowadays, the live streaming industry is moving from reckless to the right track, and supervision is also advancing with the times. Ni Hongri, an expert at the Development Research Center of the State Council, said that at a large level, the industry should strengthen digital management. She mentioned that the Inspection Bureau of the Hangzhou Municipal Taxation Bureau, in accordance with the "People's Republic of China Tax Collection and Administration Law", "Individual Income Tax Law of the People's Republic of China", "Administrative Punishment Law of the People's Republic of China" and other relevant laws and regulations, is indeed a warning signal for relevant personnel to pursue taxes, collect late fees and propose to impose fines, and play a certain warning role.

Beijing News shell financial reporter Cheng Zijiao Editor Song Yuting Proofreader Li Ming