Missing Chinese actor hit with $129m tax bill, says sorry to fans
: China has slapped a fine of 884 million yuan (around $129 mn) on the country’s leading actress, Fan Bingbing, for tax evasion, official Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday, months after she disappeared following allegations she was underpaying taxes.
Experts said the government order directing Fan – China’s most recognisable movie star internationally – to pay overdue taxes appeared to be part of a larger crackdown on the massive entertainment industry on the mainland and in Hong Kong.
On Wednesday, Fan wrote a signed article on her Twitter-like Weibo account, which has 62 million followers, confessing to evading taxes and apologising for doing so. The 37-year-old star disappeared from public life and stopped shooting for movies in June after tax evasion allegations first surfaced. Besides several high-profile Chinese films, Fan has appeared in Hollywood productions such as X-Men: Days Of Future Past and Iron Man 3.
According to a report by Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, Fan was released two weeks ago from “residential surveillance” at a “holiday resort” in Jiangsu in eastern China used to investigate officials. She was then transferred to Beijing, the report said. A probe by tax authorities found Fan had split her contract to evade taxes of 7.3 mn yuan ($1.1 mn) over payments for her role in Air Strike, due this year, Xinhua reported.