"Small places" become tax havens for "big stars"

　　The Central Propaganda Department recently issued the "Notice on Carrying out Comprehensive Management in the Field of Culture and Entertainment", requiring strict investigation and punishment of tax evasion and effective maintenance of market order.

Prior to this, the State Administration of Taxation also publicly stated that it will severely investigate and expose all kinds of malicious tax evasion, further regulate the taxation order of the film and television industry, promote the core socialist values, and promote the long-term healthy and standardized development of the film and television industry.

　　According to the company's data, since the beginning of this year, there have been more than 650,000 new "film and television" related companies and other market entities operating in the country, most of which are star studios of various types, and their registration places are concentrated in individual regions.

The reporter found in some star studios to "get together" to investigate and learned that some "small places" far away from big cities and main urban areas created tax policy "depressions" for attracting investment and became the registration of many "big star" studios. land.

　　Thousands of celebrity studios gather in "small places"

　　Xinyi is a county-level city located in the northern part of Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province. According to data provided by Qicha, Tianyancha, etc., nearly 1,200 film and television cultural market entities have been registered here one after another, including studios of well-known artists. .

Reporters recently visited the local area and found that they are almost all nominal "empty shells."

　　The registered address of most artist studios in Xinyi is "Xinyuan Film and Television Cultural Industrial Park, Xinhua Road, Xinyi City". The reporter clicked on the map and opened the map navigation to find the registered address.

The reporter drove to Xinhua Road, Xinyi City, where the registered place is located, and did not see any signs bearing the words "Film and Television Cultural Industry Park" when traveling back and forth.

Under the guidance of the staff of a real estate appraisal company, the reporter came to Xinyuan Park, which was suspected to be the predecessor of the Cultural Industry Park.

　　"It used to be a cultural industry park, but it is actually the same now. It's just a change of brand." The reporter pretended to be a merchant who came to register for a star studio, and found the former cultural industry park staff in a building in Xinyuan Park.

He revealed that since the celebrity tax evasion incident in 2018, the “industry has been greatly affected” and the number of newly established celebrity studios in the area has decreased.

　　The phenomenon of such "ghost registration" star studios is not limited to Xinyi.

The Shiqiu Film and Television Base located in the Yangtze River Delta region, according to registration data, also gathered a large number of celebrity studios, but the reporter visited the registration place and found that they did not see a listed celebrity studio.

"It's all fake. I have been working here for four years. We don't know if there is a studio in it?" said a conductor from Shiqiu Film and Television Base.

　　How does "small place" attract "big stars"?

　　The reporter visited the site as the person in charge of a cultural enterprise and found that some places are attracting film and television cultural projects under the guise of developing a "headquarters economy."

　　Investment projects are "personally grasped" by financial cadres.

When consulting the suitable park for film and television cultural enterprises, a Xinyi investment cadre stated that it is recommended to settle in the park in the form of "headquarters economy", and enjoy the greatest tax incentives.

“Just register here. You don’t need to come here except for tax filing.” When the reporter further asked about the specific tax preferential policies, the investment cadre said that the local finance bureau is responsible for all investment projects related to film and television companies and star studios. Responsible for the preliminary docking, the specific preferential rules, and the signing of contracts are all handled by the leaders of the Finance Bureau.

　　The project ledger is "invisible" and a confidentiality agreement is signed privately.

"The stars do not want the outside world to know that they have registered their studios here. We can only tell you that many big-name celebrities have already registered here." A staff member of the Shiqiu Sub-district Office said that many celebrities have registered to work in local film and television bases. Room, and all require the signing of a "confidentiality agreement."

　　High tax refunds, up to 90%.

In communicating with investment cadres in many places, the reporter learned that if a star artist is registered as a legal person of a film and television culture company, he must pay 25% of corporate income tax.

If in the name of a studio, its performance fee income is reported through the category of "individual industrial and commercial households' production and business income", and the maximum tax rate for excess and progressive is 35%.

If personal income tax is withheld based on personal income, the maximum tax rate for excess progressiveness is 45%.

It seems that the tax rate is high, but on this basis, the local government will also enjoy the 70%-90% of the income tax reserved by the local government as a return reward.

　　There is the possibility of "emptying" local financial resources

　　A fiscal and taxation expert who did not want to be named believes that in order to complete taxation tasks in some economically backward areas, they are opening up local cultural industry tax policies and attracting some celebrities to register for studios. In fact, they only increase the tax data of invoicing revenue and do not drive them. Local employment will not stimulate consumption, but will increase GDP.

If things go on like this, it is not conducive to the high-quality development of the local economy, and there is also the possibility of "emptying" local financial resources and "magnifying" tax-related risks.

　　Experts further pointed out that celebrities already belong to high-income groups, and they use the local government's investment promotion policies to avoid taxes, which undermines social equity and can easily arouse public dissatisfaction.

Relevant departments should strengthen the supervision of high-income groups, maintain the accuracy and effectiveness of taxation policies, incorporate individuals, corporate legal persons, and stakeholders into supervision, and effectively achieve full coverage of supervision with the support of existing tax information technology.

　　Why do celebrities avoid taxation and tax evasion after repeated prohibitions?

Wang Zecai, director and researcher of the Government Performance Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, believes that this is mainly inseparable from the weak enforcement of the tax law, weak tax awareness, backward collection and management methods, and low illegal costs.

In this regard, he suggested speeding up the clearing up of preferential tax policies, strictly implementing the "Notice of the State Council on Clearing up and Regulating Preferential Policies for Taxation", and cancel the "Private Taxation before Return", "Private Taxation and Refund", and "Important Taxation". Preferential tax policies such as “refundable” and “equal rewards” resolutely plug the loopholes in the loss of local government financial resources and curb the subjective tendency of stars to evade taxes and even launder money.

　　Liu Junhai, a professor at the School of Law of Renmin University of China, believes that no local government has the right to violate the provisions of the tax law and provide star studios with preferential tax policies such as "collection before return" without authorization.

Whether it is from the perspective of the rule of law in tax collection and management, or from the perspective of improving market entities' in-process and after-event supervision, the phenomenon of tax avoidance through the establishment of star studios poses new issues for regulatory enforcement.

　　According to Economic Information