AFTER becoming the source of public scorn for her role in a surrogacy scandal earlier this year, controversial actress Zheng Shuang now must pay 299 million yuan (US$46.1 million) in tax, fine and late fee for tax evasion.

Shanghai’s taxation authorities said Friday that Zheng failed to declare 191 million yuan in salary in 2019 and 2020, resulting in a tax evasion of 48 million yuan and a further 26.5 million yuan in underpaid taxes.

“The Zheng Shuang tax evasion case involves multiple regions, multiple companies and multiple performing arts projects across the country, and the case is complicated,” said a spokesperson for the Shanghai tax administration.

“Over the past four months, comprehensive and in-depth inspections have been conducted on Zheng’s use of the ‘yin and yang contract’ for suspected tax evasion,” the spokesperson said.

Yin and yang contracts are when one covert contract details the true salary for a deal, and another contract, with a lower salary, is submitted to the tax authorities to lessen the tax burden for the perpetrators.

In the case of Zheng, the authorities said a company owned by the actress was used to conceal the actual salary for her work on the television show “A Chinese Ghost Story” in 2019. Zheng was paid 156 million yuan after tax for the show.

Zheng was embroiled in a separate major controversy earlier this year. In January, the actress was accused by her former partner Zhang Heng, a producer, of abandoning two children that were born in the U.S. through surrogate mothers.

The tax authorities said her ex-partner Zhang was also a co-conspirator in the tax evasion scheme but ended up flipping and becoming a key whistleblower in helping the tax authorities make their case. (SD-Agencies)