China's Top Shopping Host Hit with 250 Billion Won Fine for Tax Evasion

Chinese influencer Wei Ya. Photo by Wei Ya Weibo

[Asia Economy Reporter Heo Midam] A live commerce host who was enjoying top popularity in China has been caught for tax evasion and fined approximately 250 billion won.

On the 20th, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that Wei Ya (real name Huang Wei), an internet shopping live broadcast host, was found to have committed tax evasion totaling 649 million yuan (about 121.2 billion won) by hiding income or transferring income to companies he personally established.

Accordingly, the Hangzhou Tax Bureau in Zhejiang Province imposed a fine of 1.341 billion yuan (about 250.4 billion won), more than twice the amount of evaded taxes, on Wei Ya. The tax bureau stated, "Authorities have always placed great importance on establishing tax order in the internet live broadcast industry," and added, "During the tax big data analysis process, we found serious tax evasion allegations against Wei Ya, and proceeded with a full tax investigation in accordance with the law."

Wei Ya is currently a highly popular influencer in China, active on Alibaba's internet live broadcast sales platform Taobao. During the 'Double Eleven' event, China's largest annual discount event, on the 11th of last month, over 100 million people watched the live broadcast hosted by Wei Ya on Taobao.

In particular, on October 20th, the first day of the Double Eleven pre-sale, Wei Ya and another popular shopping host, Li Jiaqi, sold goods worth a total of 20 billion yuan (about 3.73 trillion won) through Taobao live broadcasts, attracting significant attention.

However, due to this tax evasion detection, there are expectations that Wei Ya will find it difficult to make a comeback in the industry. Previously, following Wei Ya and Li Jiaqi, the industry's third-ranked shopping host, Xue Li, was caught for tax evasion and fined 65.55 million yuan (about 12.2 billion won). Afterward, Xue Li ceased activities.

Meanwhile, Wei Ya apologized in a statement released on China's Twitter-like platform 'Weibo,' saying, "During this investigation, it was discovered that I violated tax-related laws," and "I will take full responsibility for my mistakes."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.