Utter nonsense
Jackie Chan denies advising Chinese actress Fan Bingbing to seek refuge in the United States after tax evasion scandal.
JACKIE Chan has refuted allegations that he had advised Chinese actress Fan Bingbing to seek refuge in the United States in the wake of an ongoing tax evasion scandal.
According to Hong Kong news outlet Apple Daily ,Fan–oneof Chinese entertainment’s most recognisable faces – appeared at a Los Angeles immigration office on Aug 31 to enter the US.
The source is reportedly a Twitter user, who believes that Fan had taken Chan’s advice to seek refuge in the US to ride out what is the biggest scandal in her two decades in show business.
But in response, Chan’s company told Chinese news site ETtoday that his involvement was “nonsense”.
According to ETtoday, sources claimed that Fan had already been “taken in”, suggesting that the actress may have been arrested by Chinese authorities.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s Sing Tao Daily reported that Fan may announce her comeback on her birthday on Sept 16, but there was no official confirmation.
The 36-year-old actress went dark in June after veteran Chinese host Cui Yongyuan accused her of tax evasion in late May.
He implied that Fan had signed what is known as “yin and yang” contracts, where she reportedly had two contracts on Cell Phone 2, a Feng Xiaogang film.
One, meant to be given to the authorities, presented her pay as 10mil yuan (RM6mil) while another – used internally between Fan and the production company – presented her pay as 50mil yuan (RM30mil).
In total, she was set to receive 60mil yuan, but would only be taxed for 10mil yuan.
Fan, the highest paid actress in China according to Forbes, denied the claims and Cui later walked back on the allegations – but the damage had already been done.
China’s State Administration of Taxation published a statement on June 3, several days after Cui’s allegations, which said that it has ordered its local bureau in Jiangsu province to investigate the tax evasion issue of those working in the film industry. Though no names were cited, Fan’s film studio is based in Jiangsu.
Zhejiang Talent Television & Film, one of the production companies of The Legend Of Ba Qing –an epic Chinese drama that stars Fan alongside Chinese actor Gavin Gao – released a company report at the end of August, which said that the television series has yet to receive a date of release due to allegations its stars have been involved in. Fan is also a shareholder of Zhejiang Talent.
Aside from Fan’s tax evasion woes, Gao was charged in April with two counts of aggravated sexual assault in Australia. He remained out on bail in Australia and unable to return to China.
The company said if it does not eventually receive a release date and the show is dropped from release, it will fall into some 740mil yuan (RM448mil) of bad debts.
Fan, a mainstay on international red carpets like the Cannes Film Festival and an avid social media user, seemingly dropped off the map. Her account on Weibo, a Chinese microblogging site, has not been updated since June 2. She previously posted almost daily.
Rumours about Fan’s predicament began to fly in the months since. There were reports alleging that Fan had been banned from acting for three years and barred from leaving the country.
Her fiance, Chinese actor Li Chen, has also maintained a low profile and kept mum about her current predicament.