Image source: Oriental IC
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Everything has been foreshadowed.
According to the "2021 China Live E-commerce Industry Research Report", the scale of China's live e-commerce market will reach 1.2 trillion yuan in 2020, with an annual growth rate of 197.0%. However, while live broadcasting is booming, the discussion about how anchors pay taxes has never stopped.
On September 18, the General Office of the State Administration of Taxation issued the Notice on Strengthening the Tax Administration of Employees in the Field of Culture and Entertainment, requiring further strengthening the daily tax management of employees in the field of culture and entertainment. On December 22, the tax bureaus in Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu and other places issued notices one after another requiring celebrity artists and network anchors to take the initiative to report and correct tax-related problems before the end of the year.
According to media reports, after the Weiya incident was announced, more than a thousand anchors in Hangzhou concentrated on making up taxes.
With the closure of Weiya's account by the whole network, the "half of the sky" of live e-commerce will also change. As of December 24, Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room traffic exceeded 30 million for four consecutive days, and the highest day increased by more than 100% compared with the average number of views last week (except for double 12). Will live e-commerce flourish or blossom? In any case, live streaming is not an "extralegal place", and the latest big data tax system leaves tax evaders with nowhere to escape.
Image source: Taobao Live
01
The "combination punch" to combat false declarations
Depending on the mode of live streaming, the types of taxes that anchors need to pay are also different.
According to the "IT Times" reporter, the anchor in the name of the individual live broadcast with goods, the taxpayer is the anchor himself, mainly involving value-added tax, personal income tax, etc.; in the name of a sole proprietorship or individual partnership to live stream the goods, the taxpayer is a sole proprietorship or individual partnership, the same also need to pay vat, personal income tax, etc.; and in the name of the limited liability company to carry goods, the taxpayer is a limited liability company, the relevant income from live streaming with goods needs to pay value-added tax, enterprise income tax, Anchors who pay dividends from limited liability companies are also subject to personal income tax.
It can be seen from the publicly disclosed information on tax evasion by anchors that converting income from labor remuneration into false declarations of business income is one of the main means of tax avoidance. Ma Kainong, a special researcher at the E-commerce Research Center of the Network Economic Society and a lawyer at Zhejiang Zeda Law Firm, pointed out that according to China's "Individual Income Tax Law", anchor commissions and pit fees are income from labor remuneration, and the applicable tax rate is 3% to 45%; if it is the business income of sole proprietorships and partnerships, the applicable tax rate is 5% to 35%. Compared with the two, taking the head anchor's live broadcast with tens of millions of yuan as an example, the 10% tax gap is as high as several million.
At present, the tax collection method is mainly divided into two methods: "audit collection" and "approved collection". Ma Kainong told the "IT Times" reporter: "If the enterprise pays the tax in the form of audit collection, it is determined according to the tax rate of the Individual Income Tax Law, but if the enterprise declares the approved collection, because the profit rate and collection rate of the approved collection are relatively low, the tax burden will be less." In addition, there are often some preferential tax policies in the place of registration of enterprises, and a set of 'combination fists' will be played down, and the actual tax burden will be greatly reduced, and the excess will enter the personal pocket. ”
In this regard, the "Notice on Strengthening the Tax Administration of Employees in the Field of Culture and Entertainment" requires that individual studios and enterprises established by star artists and network anchors should be guided to establish an account system in accordance with laws and regulations, and declare and pay taxes by means of account inspection and collection. The so-called audit collection is actually based on the actual income and expenses of the star studio. Relevant experts believe that compared with the approved collection, the tax burden of enterprises after the audit and collection will definitely increase significantly and be more fair.
02
Precise supervision of "taxation by numbers"
The income from live streaming mainly consists of pit fees, commissions and tip income, etc., and the diversification of income sources makes the determination of taxes complicated. For example, is the tip income counted as labor remuneration or a gift? How to divide the endorsement fee and the tax on the income of offline commercial performances? It is precisely because of these vague definitions that it increases the difficulty of collecting and supervising taxes by relevant departments, giving some anchors an opportunity.
Cai Chang, a professor at the School of Finance and Taxation of the Central University of Finance and Economics and director of the Tax Planning and Legal Research Center, believes that the anchors are different according to the nature of income, involving different personal income tax projects, but from the perspective of tax practice, the live streaming industry chain is complex, involving multiple interests, and it is difficult for traditional tax supervision methods to effectively intervene.
In the anchor tax evasion information disclosed this time, the elaboration of "the tax department through tax big data analysis..." has given the public a new understanding of the national tax system, and the application of big data technology is constantly improving the previous taxation blind spots. In particular, after the third phase of the Golden Tax was launched, it not only realized the merger and unification of national land tax data, but also connected the information of relevant departments such as industry and commerce, taxation and social security through the Internet, providing information technology support for unified national tax law enforcement and real-time monitoring of national collection and management data.
The fourth phase of the Golden Tax, which was officially launched on December 1, 2021, is the optimization and upgrading of the third phase of the Golden Tax. According to relevant media reports, unlike the past verification and comparison based on the company's own data, the fourth phase of the Golden Tax can understand the operation of the enterprise through more dimensional data analysis, including comparing the company's past declaration data and related data of the same industry, and can also retrieve various operational information of the enterprise on the network.
Image source: Network
In this regard, Cai Chang also pointed out that means such as tax big data analysis play an important role in tax collection and management of emerging formats, especially through data collection, data mining, data verification and other means, the use of modern information technology to obtain new evidence, the formation of new means of collection and management, and strengthen the collection and management. With the support of big data, national tax monitoring is becoming more and more intelligent and strict, and tax evasion will have nowhere to hide.
03
Thriving or blossoming?
In addition to the disclosed weiya and other head anchors, relevant tax departments said that there are still some head anchors who have not been disclosed, and the head anchors have been making up taxes, and the specific data cannot be disclosed. Due to tax evasion and other behaviors, a number of head anchor accounts have been banned, and the head anchor has been hit hard, which may indicate that the live broadcasting industry will usher in a new change.
For a long time, the head anchor with huge traffic has occupied a near-monopoly position in the e-commerce pattern. Shi Jie, an IP incubation expert and Internet blogger, told reporters: "The so-called head anchor monopoly is mainly manifested in the pricing power and discourse power of commodities. ”
Originally, the anchor's choice of goods was based on the delivery of goods, but as the traffic grew larger and larger, the head anchor gradually changed from the commission with goods to the direction of advertising, there was a model of "pit fee + commission", and the head anchor had pricing power, and the merchant and the head anchor talked about cooperation with the goods on the premise of advertising, which is also the reason why the head anchor can get the "lowest price".
Mo Daiqing, director of the online retail department and senior analyst of the e-commerce research center of the network economic and social society, said that the monopoly of the head anchor is not conducive to the development of the industry. Behind the head live broadcast reflects a huge resource concentration effect, and the space available to small and medium-sized anchors and long-tail anchors is compressed. There are also drawbacks from the merchant's point of view. For example, during the Double 11 period, consumers could have found merchants through the venue, but now they have to pass the anchor, which actually has an additional threshold. Under the coercion of the platform, in order to be able to enter the live broadcast room of the head anchor, merchants are bound to make concessions and sacrifices. This has created an uneven development for the business ecosystem.
This time, the tax department rectified the e-commerce live broadcasting industry, promoted the live broadcast with goods to move in a more standardized direction, and also broke the monopoly of the head anchor to a certain extent. Some insiders believe in interviews with the media that the successive withdrawal of the head anchor does not mean the loneliness of the industry, but a symbol of the industry entering a new stage. Under the new pattern, the middle waist anchor may usher in the second spring of traffic, and enterprise self-broadcasting may become a new trend.
Enterprise self-broadcast
Zhang Yi, chief researcher and CEO of Ai Media Consulting, believes that if this part of the traffic gathered by the head is released, it means that more opportunities are given. These opportunities provide many possibilities for the innovation and development of the entire e-commerce live broadcasting industry.
However, judging from the live broadcast in recent days, the traffic of Li Jiaqi, the "live broadcast brother", has risen sharply. Before December 20, it was originally a weak period after double 12, and the number of people in and out of Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room was about 20 million every day, but after 4 p.m. on the 20th, the traffic in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room in these days was 38.04 million, 49.267 million, 32.288 million, and 31.289 million, respectively, but the waist anchors who were originally ranked after Sydney, such as Lie'er Baby and Lin Yilun, the traffic in these days was basically maintained at around 5 million, compared with before, there was not much increase.
Li Jiaqi live broadcast room recent traffic
Half of the sky left by a sister, whether it will make a brother "thrive", or many anchors bloom, it still needs time to give the answer.
Author/IT Times reporter Jiang Liwen
Editor/Hao Junhui Kicked Sister
Typography/Ji Jiaying
Photo/ State Administration of Taxation Weibo Taobao Oriental IC Network
Source/IT Times public account vittimes