Former agent of Chinese actress fined in tax-evasion case

BEIJING, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Zhang Heng, the former agent of Chinese actress Zheng Shuang in a Chinese TV drama project, has been fined 32.27 million yuan (about 5 million U.S. dollars) for helping the actress evade taxes, according to the State Tax Administration on Monday.

Zhang was responsible for the actress' contracts, remuneration and other issues in the TV series "A Chinese Ghost Story" in December, 2018, said an official with the Shanghai Municipal Tax Service.

The investigations revealed that Zhang had detailed the payment method of actress Zheng with the producer of the TV series, and made the plan to split the payment contract totaling 160 million yuan into two to evade taxes over the sky-high remuneration.

One contract stated that the actress' pay was 48 million yuan, and the other showed that the rest of the actress' income would be paid through capital replenishment to a company under Zheng's de facto control.

Previously, actress Zheng was fined a total of 299 million yuan in the tax fraud case.  ■