Alibaba Purges 200,000 Tax-Avoiding Vendors as Nations Crack Down

Alibaba has blocked 200,000 vendors globally since September in response to governmental pressure for the Chinese e-commerce giant to crack down on tax avoiders using its platform.

The purge comes as India cracks down on e-commerce platforms tolerating sellers that refuse to pay tax and the U.K. and Germany jump ahead of sluggish EU efforts to tax sales on e-commerce platforms, despite expert’s predictions that doing so could prompt some vendors to flee to Alibaba.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s online platform AliExpress “forbids illegal activities by third party online sellers,” the company told Bloomberg Tax in a statement. “Globally, ...