Jack Ma slams e-business owners who don’t pay tax as 'immoral'

Alibaba Group chairman Jack Ma Yun stirred up a hornet's nest on Tuesday after it was reported he had accused tax-evading e-businesses of acting “immorally” in a TV interview.

Ma made the comment on a CCTV talk show recorded on the eve of China’s biggest online shopping day on Monday, when transactions on Alibaba’s major retailing platforms - Taobao and Tmall - topped 35 billion yuan (HK$44.2 billion) as discounts fuelled customer demand.

“We support levying tax, and I’ve always firmly believed that it’s immoral if businesses don’t pay tax,” Ma said while sitting down with Economics 30 Minutes host Wang Xiaoya. “Society has made huge contributions to your enterprise by providing infrastructure - and it’s not just illegal but also immoral if you don’t pay taxes.”

Ma approached the controversial and sensitive topic of tax after talking about his expectations for the upcoming Singles’ Day and the high level of creativity required for business owners to survive and thrive in doing business online.

“94 per cent of Taobao sellers don’t pay tax since their annual sales revenue doesn’t exceed [240,000 yuan],” he said, “But those 6 per cent who do need to pay taxes are being watched by too many organisations whose only job is to check on sellers whenever they are doing well in sales.”

This leads to high costs in levying taxes, Ma added. “While someone pays 500 yuan in tax,  it might cost 700 yuan to make him pay.”