World: Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, stuck with huge tax bill, gets huge donations
- $2.4M the size of the fine China gave to firebrand artist Ai Weiwei — to be paid in just 15 days
- 20k number of people who have offered Weiwei donations to help pay this insane tax bill
- $550k amount of money these people have given the artist in just five days; impressive source
- » This on top of a long arrest earlier this year: Ai Weiwei spent 81 days in jail on tax evasion charges, but claims all authorities wanted to talk about was his pro-democracy record. The fine Ai has been forced to pay is more than three times the size of his tax bill — and he needs help paying. The surprising part is that he actually got said help. “It’s surprising; it has really changed my perspective on people,” he said, noting that people traveled long distances to give him financial help — in person. Ai prefers to think of the payments as loans, and turned down a $157,000 payment from a businessman, saying he preferred smaller loans.
