Text | Chief Business Review
At this point, the live broadcast may no longer have The top anchor of Via. Last night, Via's various live broadcast rooms have been removed, and whether it can be restarted may not be a question to consider in the short term.
01 The Road to Anchor
Wei Ya, formerly known as Huang Wei, was born in Anhui in 1985. She didn't go to school much, and when she was a teenager, she began to go out and roam the rivers and lakes, when she chose to do the clothing industry and started a wholesale clothing business. While in the clothing business, she met Dong Haifeng and later became her husband. After Wei Ya married Dong Haifeng, the two jointly ran a clothing store, and earned the first bucket of gold in her life when running a clothing store. After two years in the clothing business, She likes to sing Via to try to enter the entertainment industry, and in 2005, Via's group won the annual championship in Anhui Satellite TV's "Super Idol", and Via became a signed singer for Universal Records. Subsequently, she and Jay Chou filmed a "dynamic zone" commercial film, and Lin Junjie also co-produced an advertisement.
The identity of the singer has trained the basic skills for Via to become a top anchor in the future.
After 2008, because of different ideas, Dong Haifeng and Wei Ya left the record company and used their previous savings to "return to the old business", reopening a women's clothing wholesale store in Xi'an and expanding to seven stores. Later, the rise of e-commerce, the two decided to all in Taobao stores, so it took half a month to close seven offline stores and opened an online store in Guangzhou. Wei Ya was responsible for the development and design and modeling work, Dong Haifeng grasped the production end and team management, and hired a photographer to be responsible for shooting and visual design of the store. In 2015 Double Eleven, the online store operated by Dong Haifeng and Wei Ya accumulated a lot of money, achieving the result of selling more than 10 million yuan a day, and the annual sales reached more than 30 million yuan.
Via and Dong Haifeng
By 2016, Taobao live broadcasting was on the rise. At first, she simply wanted to drain her shop. Via began the first live broadcast, which attracted thousands of people to watch. Via amassed the first wave of fans on this livestream, which has been broadcast live every day ever since. In May 2016, Via officially became an anchor, and in October 2017, she brought goods to a fur shop with zero fans, with sales of up to 70 million yuan. In 2019, the cooperation between Via and Taobao has become increasingly close. On January 10, Wei Ya moved the live broadcast room to the Alibaba Technology Poverty Alleviation Conference to help poor counties in Hebei sell eggs, yams, winter dates and other agricultural products. In the meantime, Ma Yun went to Wei Ya's live broadcast room and encouraged "selling goods for farmers well".
However, over the years, as a top anchor, Via has frequently stepped on the thunder with goods in live broadcasts. In January 2020, the Italian light luxury brand ASH Ai Xi posted on Weibo that it had received a number of complaints from consumers and sales channels, saying that the "Via viya high-end custom women's shoes" Taobao store had copied (counterfeited) a number of products under the ASH brand and sold them in the "viavia live broadcast room"; In March 2020, the clothing brand squarecircle posted that Via sold its own women's clothing store goods in the live broadcast. One of them is a knitted cardigan sweater suspected of copying the goods it sold online in the official store of an e-commerce platform... In May this year, Via recommended a halterneck fan, claiming to be a joint name with international big names. After the broadcast, this small fan known as the "joint model" was questioned by users as a copycat. Immediately after, Via said in a statement that this product was recommended by Xiao Er of Tmall Store. After triggering the anger of netizens, Via had to issue an apology statement on Weibo.
02 The head anchor needs to prove its value
In the live broadcasting world, Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya have become a sister and a brother, and other anchors have tried to surpass but so far they are only close. The traffic resources controlled by the head anchor have also achieved an important chip in their business negotiations and a monetization weapon between live broadcasts. During this year's Double Eleven period, October 20 single-day live broadcast, according to the official data released, Li Jiaqi live broadcast room cumulative viewing volume of 248 million people, a total of 439 goods, Weiya live room cumulative view of 239 million people, a total of 499 goods. The cumulative transaction volume of Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room is 10.6 billion, and the cumulative transaction volume of Wei Ya's live broadcast room is 8.2 billion.
However, live streaming can also bring some side effects when it is lively. On October 10 this year, Meng Xing, the founder of Diaoye Beef Brisket, wrote an article saying "Li Jiaqi Killed Double 11", the main point expressed in the article was: On the one hand, after being baptized by the anchors at the lowest price day after day, consumers have no sense of the promotion during the Double Eleven period. On the other hand, every product sold in the live broadcast room, many of them are making money at a loss, and for merchants, it is only a brand exposure, which is used as an advertisement, not as a channel. Anchors earn real money and silver, consumers make wool, brand owners earn exposure, and platforms make steady profits anyway. On October 20, L'Oréal's hard shoulder with Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya was also interpreted from another side as a rebellion by brand owners against the traffic control of head anchors.
Head brands continue to expand their channels and test their own live broadcasts, all in order to reduce their dependence on head anchors. The L'Oréal incident let the whole network know that the brand's self-operated store is the lowest price, and the price of cooperation between the brand and the head anchor in the future is not necessarily the lowest price, and the head anchor should rely on himself to make profits, rather than relying purely on the lowest price to attract sales.
03 Fined 1.341 billion, how much is Via's personal income?
On December 20, Wei Ya was severely fined 1.341 billion yuan by the Hangzhou tax department for breaking the news of large and small media. Beijing Daily reported that the Hangzhou tax department answered reporters' questions. There are a few points worth noting:
1. The tax department of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, found through big data analysis of taxation that network anchor Huang Wei (Wei Ya) was suspected of tax evasion. Huang Wei was posthumously paid taxes, collected late fees and fined a total of 1.341 billion yuan.
2. Between 2019 and 2020, Huang Wei evaded taxes of 643 million yuan and other underpaid taxes by concealing personal income, fictitious business to transform the nature of income and false declarations, and other underpaid taxes of 0.6 billion yuan. In the process of tax investigation, Huang Wei was able to cooperate and take the initiative to pay back 500 million yuan in taxes (accounting for 78% of the tax evasion verified), and at the same time actively reported tax-related violations that the tax authorities had not yet mastered.
How did Via evade taxes? The answer of the Hangzhou tax department is: 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 fictitious business of the partnership, the income from the commissions and pit fees obtained by the individuals engaged in live streaming is converted into the income from the operation of the enterprise to evade taxes.
From this circular, it can be seen that:
First, Via's tax evasion was not reported, but obtained by the tax authorities through big data analysis. In this way, the big data analysis layout of the tax department has gradually matured, and since it can be applied to Via, of course, it can also be applied to any other anchor. And as long as it is suspected of tax evasion and tax evasion, it is only a matter of time before it is discovered.
Second, the tax evasion issue involving Via is mainly focused on whether her income is settled by paying 5% operating income tax on demand or 45% personal income tax withheld by the company.
So, how much of Via's personal income was evaded in this incident? Let's take a look at Via's personal cargo data:
The year of tax evasion and evasion mainly refers to 2019 to November 2020, because Weiya's husband Dong Haifeng has publicly apologized, saying that since November 2020, we have terminated the so-called tax planning and coordination, paid Weiya's relevant taxes in full according to the 45% personal income tax rate, and took the initiative to pay the relevant taxes that were not compliant before this.
According to industry insiders, li jiaqi's domestic brands have commissions of 30% to 45%, and foreign brands of 20% to 35%. The commission level of Via is 30% of domestic beauty, 10% of international beauty, and 15% of others.
According to the above data, assuming that Via's sales in the above time period are about 45 billion yuan, then with a conservative 10% commission + a pit fee of about 5%, the income of Weiya's Humble Culture should be 6.75 billion. The gross profit of 6.75 billion yuan after deducting 20% of operating costs will have 25% corporate income tax and will have a net profit of about 4 billion, and because the company has other shareholders, it is assumed that the dividend to Via will be estimated to be 1.5-2 billion.
The tax evasion is about 700 million yuan, the tax rate of evasion is (45%-5% = 40%), but it is said that the actual dividend of Via during this period is about 1.75 billion yuan, which is consistent with the above-mentioned range of 1.5-2 billion yuan that we assume.
In the "2021 New Fortune 500 Rich List" released by New Fortune in May this year, Wei Ya and Dong Haifeng successfully entered the list with a net worth of 9 billion, ranking 490th, alongside Xu Xin, founder of "Venture Capital Queen" Today Capital, Zhang Xuhao, founder of Hungry.me, and Tao Huabi, founder of Lao Gan Ma. As early as November 2020, some people broke the news that Wei Ya earned 5 billion yuan per year. However, Via then responded in an exclusive interview with Cover. She said that she did sell more than 10 billion yuan in 2019, but the statement that she earned 5 billion yuan a year and earned hundreds of millions of yuan a month is really exaggerated. Via said that the money was all managed by her husband, but it was really not that much.
According to Tianyan, Wei Ya currently serves as the legal representative of 8 companies, serves as an executive in 11 companies, is a shareholder of 13 companies, and holds 14 companies. Wei Ya's husband, Dong Haifeng, has served as the legal representative of 19 companies, the executive of 23 companies, and 38 holding companies.
04 Reshaping of the industry
The problem of the live broadcasting industry has always been the epitome of China's consumer industry problems for many years. Counterfeit goods, shoddy charging, and copycats are more common phenomena. In addition, after-sales service is difficult, and it is not uncommon to return the goods. Data fraud, water army onlookers, false orders have been repeatedly exposed. However, even so, the power of live streaming with goods is still very large. The main charm comes from three aspects:
First, a large number of imports of platform traffic. Li Jiaqi and Wei Ya are both celebrities cultivated by Taobao Live, they live broadcast with goods, and the Taobao Department naturally spares no effort to give support;
Second, the brand owners who enter the head anchor live broadcast room have a large profit margin;
Third, the personal talent, efforts of li jiaqi, Wei Ya and other anchors, and the professional operation of the entire link from product selection to live broadcast.
But because the income of this group has greatly exceeded the original expectations, it is sooner or later to check the tax.
On November 22, Zhu Chenhui (Sydney) and Lin Shanshan, who are also the first-line anchors of Taobao, will be recovered from taxes, collect late fees and fined 65.5531 million yuan and 27.6725 million yuan respectively for tax evasion. At 17:18 on the 20th, Via apologized on her Weibo, saying that "I am willing to bear all the consequences for my mistakes." According to the China News Network, the current Taobao APP has not been able to find The Via live broadcast room. In this regard, Taobao customer service said that due to violations of relevant regulations, the anchor account has been frozen, but the store has not been blocked.
After the Sydney accident, the Taobao store was removed from the shelves, and the name of Sydney almost completely withdrew from the e-commerce jianghu. However, judging from Via's apology letter, Wei Ya's Taobao store seems to still have a glimmer of life, but it can be predicted that as an Internet celebrity with a stain, the possibility of Wei Ya returning to the top stream anchor is already very small. Because of the Weiya incident, many netizens paid special attention to another anchor, Li Jiaqi. On the afternoon of the 20th, the person in charge of Li Jiaqi's Meione company said in an interview with the media, "We operate honestly, we do our duty live, and everything in the company is operating normally." ”
According to reports, in September this year, the State Administration of Taxation issued a special notice clarifying that if network anchors can take the initiative to report and correct tax-related problems in a timely manner before the end of 2021, they can be mitigated, mitigated or exempted from punishment in accordance with the law. According to media reports, thousands of people have taken the initiative to check and pay back taxes.
1.341 billion, as the highest amount of fines for individuals in domestic history, is not only a heavy hammer that hits Via, from Sydney to Via, the impact on the entire live streaming industry may even be reshaped.
First, the tax rules for live streaming with goods are more clear: the income derived from well-known personal live streaming goods is characterized as personal income when it is actually distributed, which applies to the individual income tax law, up to a maximum of 45%, and cannot avoid tax through sole proprietorships, partnerships and other enterprises, and the relevant tax planning will also be terminated. As for other ordinary live broadcast Internet celebrities hanging under mcN institutions, according to the chief, many of them originally signed labor contracts with the company and paid personal income tax according to law, so there will not be much impact at present.
Second, in addition to standardizing taxation, the amount of goods must not dare to falsely report the water, if you brush the order, not only to pay the cost of the brush, but also may have to pay additional corporate income tax and personal income tax for the resulting sales, the cost and risk of brushing the bill rose sharply.
Third, Sydney overturned, Wei Ya overturned, the platform will definitely control the support of the top stream anchors, need to reconsider and plan, the anchor traffic distribution fairness, balance. At the same time, MCN institutions will also reduce the degree of dependence on individual anchors, cultivate more anchors as much as possible, and reduce operational risks.
The sky-high fine that smashed into Wei Ya once again made the melon-eating masses see how deep the water of the industry of live streaming with goods is. At the same time, the era of live broadcasting that standardizes and rectifies, allowing bosses and anchors to enjoy exclusive dividends as one is over, and the chief will continue to observe the subsequent development of the industry.