In the case of Zheng, the STA 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.

The 160 million yuan (US$24.6 million) salary that was announced for her role on the show – which, it turned out, was not accurate – angered the public, who felt it highlighted the problems of China’s wealth gap. The revelations of her salary appear to have triggered the tax evasion investigation.

The STA said Zheng is unlikely to face criminal charges as long as she pays her fine.

The facts of the case are similar to that of Fan Bingbing in 2018, who was also charged with using a yin and yang scam to evade taxes and was fined 883 million yuan (US$129 million back then).

However, Fan’s story gained global attention because she was famously public about her day-to-day life before she suddenly disappeared for four months while being investigated, sparking rumours about what had happened to her.

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 America through surrogate mothers.

A video emerged of the couple and their parents discussing what they would do with the babies because the couple had broken up. The babies had not been born at the time.

The STA said her ex-partner Zhang was also a co-conspirator in the tax evasion scheme but ended up flipping and becoming a key whistle-blower in helping the tax authorities make their case. But the STA spokesperson was evasive in whether Zhang would also face fines.

The case comes amid the backdrop of a government campaign to improve the moral behaviour of celebrities, primarily driven by a series of sexual assault accusations made against famous men.