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 Internet celebrity Viya, whose
real name is Huang Wei, was fined for hiding
personal income and other offences in 2019 and
2020, according to the tax bureau in Hangzhou, a
city in southern China.
She later apologised.
"I'm deeply sorry about my violations of the tax
laws and regulations," she said on her Weibo
account. "I thoroughly accept the punishment
made by the tax authorities."
Viya, 36, is known for her ability to sell
"anything" via livestreaming on the Taobao Live
platform. Last year, she sold a rocket launch
service for 40 million yuan.
In a recent online shopping festival known as
Singles' Day, she sold products worth a total of
8.5 billion yuan (in one evening, according to
media reports.
Viya is the latest celebrity livestreamer to get
caught up in a broad crackdown that initially
targeted tech monopolies but has since gone on
to take aim at private education, social media
platforms, and the culture of celebrity.
Before the crackdown, tax evasion, an age-old
practice among China's celebrities, had already
sunk the career of several well-known figures in
the entertainment industry.
Viya, however, represents a new generation of
celebrities, whose meteoric rise to fame has
been powered by the equally dizzying growth of
China's e-commerce sector, many aspects of which
have come under regulatory scrutiny.
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 Two e-commerce livestreaming
influencers were reported to be under
investigation for personal tax evasion last
month and were together fined nearly 100 million
yuan. Their livestreaming services have since
closed. Viya was scheduled to
conduct a livestreaming at 7 p.m. on Monday,
focusing on cosmetics. A check of her Taobao
livestreaming studio showed that a reminder for
the event had been removed.
The State Taxation Administration issued a
notice in September, announcing measures to
strengthen tax administration in the
entertainment sector, including livestreamers.
The office said anyone who reports and corrects
tax-related misdoings would be given lighter
punishment or even exempt from punishment. More
than 1,000 people had taken the initiative to
pay tax arrears, according to state media.
($1 = 6.3762 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Sophie Yu in Beijing, Eduardo
Baptista in Hong Kong; Editing by Kevin Liffey,
Robert Birsel)
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