China targets wealthy influencers with audits, fines as fiscal pressures rise

China has ramped up audits involving online influencers and high-wage earners, as part of broader efforts to expand tax revenue and refine the taxation system.

The State Taxation Administration on Wednesday spotlighted two fresh cases involving influencers in the centrally administered city of Chongqing and in Gansu province.

In Chongqing, authorities ordered an influencer surnamed Peng – who has 30 million followers and works in online video production and commercial advertising – to pay 4.15 million yuan (US$595,000) in back taxes and fines for under-reporting income.

In the other case, Gansu regulators ordered a live-streamer surnamed Yang, an e-commerce host with nearly 300,000 followers, to pay 1.81 million yuan for similar offences.

As China’s digital infrastructure matures, top-tier influencers are leveraging massive audience engagement to generate premium earnings. Consequently, they have become a focal point of Beijing’s intensified tax scrutiny as regulators seek to broaden the national tax base amid fiscal pressures.

“The scale and fluctuations in the declared income did not align with the influencers’ consistently high online traffic, raising suspicions that income had been concealed to evade taxes,” state tax officials said in a separate statement on Wednesday, explaining how an analysis of big data flagged the discrepancies.