The Chinese influencer Huang Wei, who advertises products on the Internet under the name Viya, has to pay the equivalent of 186 million euros due to tax offenses. The communist party organ Volkszeitung spoke of a “warning” for other personalities in the e-commerce business that “their websites are not outside the law”. The 35-year-old Huang Wei evaded 643 million yuan (about 89 million euros) in taxes by withholding income or incorrectly declaring it for over two years, the tax office in Hangzhou said.
The headquarters of the online company Alibaba, which operates the Taobao trading platform with 500 million registered users, is located in the east Chinese city and can be followed on the Huang Weis live stream.
The practice is part of a campaign against celebrities and show business in China.
The management is increasingly trying to get the enthusiasm for the extremely well-paid stars and their enthusiastic fan base under control.
Huang Wei mobilizes up to ten million viewers for one of their online advertising shows.
According to estimates by industry experts, it should have achieved sales of more than 4.3 billion euros in 2020 - more than any other Internet size.
Huang Wei and her husband Dong Haifeng accepted the sentence and apologized to their fans on the Weibo short message service: "We made a big mistake."