The rich are crying too: in China, a streamer was fined $ 210 million for hiding income

Chinese streamer Huang Wei, known to the world as Viya, was fined $ 210 million or 15.5 billion rubles for non-payment and tax evasion.

36-year-old super-popular Chinese streamer Viya (Huang Wei) is known in China for "being able to sell anything on the Internet." In 2020, she became famous for selling a rocket for $5.6 million live on Taobao.

Hangzhou authorities accuse the streamer of hiding income, tax evasion and other financial crimes. On December 20, the State Tax Inspectorate reported that from 2019 to 2020, the woman hid her income, thereby underpaying 640 million yuan ($ 100 million or 7.4 billion rubles) to the treasury. For this she was severely punished. 

At first, the authorities blocked the pages in all social networks. And now the beauty faces a dilemma – either she pays a fabulous fine of 1.34 billion yuan (210 million dollars or 15.5 billion rubles) and continues to work, or a criminal case will be opened against her.

Millions of subscribers have subscribed to the "queen of streams", and Time magazine has listed her among the 100 most influential people for 2021. In addition to sales, the girl was also engaged in charity work. So during the outbreak of the pandemic, she was able to raise more than $ 36 million for humanitarian aid to the residents of Wuhan. 

In an official message, the "queen of the stream" fully admitted her guilt and asked for forgiveness. 

The department noted that the girl went to cooperate with the tax authorities. During the investigation, Huang Wei has already paid 500 million yuan and confessed to tax crimes that investigators had not previously known about.

China has punished the girl with a record fine as part of efforts to regulate the booming e-commerce industry.