One of China’s best-known actresses and companies she worked with have been ordered to pay about $129 million (Dh474m)in taxes and fines following a months-long tax evasion probe.
Fan Bingbing was personally fined 479 million yuan ($70 million), the official Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday. The remainder involves back taxes and fines against companies affiliated with the star. Fan, in her first post in months on Weibo social media, said she was deeply ashamed of her tax evasion practices and apologized to tax authorities and the public.
The 37-year-old actress, who has more than 60 million followers on the Twitter-like Weibo, has vanished from public view and on social media since June. That’s when a former broadcaster took to Weibo to publish what he described as contracts Fan and others have used to avoid taxes.
The perils of Fan, who has starred in hit TV series and films including the X-Men franchise, underscore the increasing scrutiny the country’s authorities have paid to the entertainment industry. If the star pays the fines and taxes before the deadline, she will avoid criminal charges, Xinhua said, citing the tax authority.
Fan’s agent is being held on suspicion of criminal activity and the tax authorities said he obstructed their investigation, Xinhua reported.
China is the most-regulated major entertainment market in the world, where the Communist Party weighs in on everything from the appropriateness of costumes to the salaries of movie stars.
The Party-controlled Chinese Academy of Social Sciences last month released an assessment and ranking of the “social responsibility” exhibited by China’s Top 100 celebrities. Fan, ranked last. Only nine stars “passed” the assessment at all. In recent months, the government has also issued directives to cap celebrities’ pay and top production companies have vowed to resist overcompensating stars.
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