China’s Big Data Catches Another Livestreamer Evading Taxes

What’s new: Ping Rong, an e-commerce livestreamer who had 24 million followers on Kuaishou, a video-sharing and livestreaming app, was hit with a financial penalty of 62 million yuan ($9.8 million) to cover fines for tax evasion, overdue taxes, and fees for late payment, the Guangzhou tax bureau announced on Tuesday.

Ping is the latest in a string of high-profile tax evasion cases in the livestreaming industry to be exposed after local authorities used “big data tax analysis” to alert them to potential transgressions.