Sydney - Millionaire actor-director Paul Hogan, the former
Sydney Harbour Bridge scaffold worker behind the 1986 hit comedy
Crocodile Dundee, Friday challenged the Australian taxman to try and
get more money from him.
Hogan, who lives in the United States, is suspected of using
private trusts and offshore havens to avoid taxes.
'Come and get me you miserable bastards,' a combative Hogan told a
local television station in a telephone interview from his
California mansion.
'I'll give them every cent I made ... if they give me back every
cent they made out of the movies. I'll swap with them,' he said.
The Australian Tax Office (ATO) has enlisted the help of the US
Internal Revenue Service to get a look at Hogan's US bank accounts.
Two years ago, Hogan sold his Australian properties and moved
permanently to Santa Barbara, where he lives with his wife, Crocodile
Dundee co-star Linda Kozlowski, who is a US citizen.
In 2006, when the ATO began its investigation into Hogan's
financial affairs, it was reported that tens of millions of dollars
in royalty payments from the Crocodile Dundee films were routed
through complex offshore tax structures in Chile and the Netherlands
Antilles in the Caribbean.
A spokesman for Hogan at the time said US financial advisers to
the former prizefighter may not have understood Australia's 'complex
and changing tax laws,' and that any failure to pay tax on income was
an oversight rather than a deliberate act.
Crocodile Dundee, which earned 350 million US dollars at the box
office, remains Australia's most successful film.
Hogan's Australian lawyer, David Rydon, told The Australian that
the actor regarded the ATO's actions as an unlawful attempt to obtain
irrelevant material.
'Mr Hogan is in the invidious position of not being able to
publicly comment on any issues because of legislative constraints
which may or may not prohibit him from public disclosure,' Rydon told
the newspaper.
USA
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