X-Men: Days of Future Past actress Fan Bingbing, who played Blink in the X-Men film, has been accused of evading taxes by the Chinese tax authorities.
According to a report coming from The Hollywood Reporter, citing China’s state news outlet Xinhua, Fan has been ordered to pay taxes and penalties totaling around $128 million. The tax authorities suspected the Chinese actress resorted to using a fraudulent dual-contract system, also referred to as yin-yang contracts, to evade taxes. She would sign different contracts for the same job but for different fees and would submit the lower fee contract to tax authorities. The report added that if Fan pays the tax penalty in full she will possibly escape criminal prosecution, as it is her first offense.
Fan Bingbing, who is currently China’s highest-paid actress and the face of many luxury endorsements in the country, hasn’t been spotted in public since July 1 after the allegations of tax evasion emerged. She also disappeared from Chinese social media since July 23.
Shortly after the Xinhua report surfaced online, Fan posted an apology on her official Weibo account on Wednesday. She admitted to signing the contracts and said she “completely accepts” the decision by tax authorities.
“I’ve been suffering unprecedented pain recently… I’m so ashamed of what I’ve done. Here, I sincerely apologize to everyone,” the actress wrote. “As a public figure, I should have abided by laws and regulations, and been a role model in the industry and society. I shouldn’t have lost self-restraint or become lax in managing (my companies), which led to the violation of laws, in the name of economic interests.”
Fan Bingbing is one of China’s most influential celebrities. With an income of around 300 million yuan ($43m), Fan topped Forbes magazine’s top-earning Chinese celebrities 2017 list. It currently remains unclear if Fan’s has also been banned from acting.
.@realBingbingFan has just posted a statement to Weibo after a 4-month hiatus.
"Without the Party and the state's good policies, without the love from the people, there would have been no Fan Bingbing"https://t.co/OaCEfhg0zK pic.twitter.com/2SN8brpY5G
— 💯Fergus Ryan (@fryan) October 3, 2018
Source: Xinhua via THR
