'Crocodile Dundee' Star Paul Hogan Has Message for Taxman: 'Bugger 'em!'

By PopEater Staff Posted Sep 1st 2010 04:24PM

'Crocodile Dundee' star Paul Hogan lashed out at the Australian tax office in an interview Tuesday on the Australian television's 'A Current Affair' after being told he couldn't leave the country until he pays off his debts, Reuters reports.

"I can't pay 10 percent of what they're asking ... bugger 'em!" the actor said.

When the 70-year-old actor landed in Sydney on Aug. 20 to attend his mother's funeral, he was slapped with an order by the Australian Taxation Office demanding he pay millions in back taxes if he wants to leave the country and return to his home in Los Angeles, Hogan's lawyer, Andrew Robinson, said last week.

In the 'Current Affair' interview, Hogan said he'd fight the tax office's probe and intimated that he's being used as a scapegoat in the Australian government's $300 million crackdown effort on offshore tax evasion, called Operation Wickenby.

"If I was a tax evader, which I'm not, I must be the dumbest one in the world to keep coming back here instead of fleeing to a tax haven ... I know they're absolutely desperate to nail some high-profile character with money to justify the expense to the taxpayer," Hogan said in the interview.

Australian tax crime officials have been investigating Hogan for five years in an attempt to prove he used offshore bank accounts to conceal his income after 1986's 'Crocodile Dundee' became an international hit. Last month, tax authorities claimed Hogan owed as much as $38 million Australian dollars, but the official amount has not been made public.

Hogan feels, if anything, he's already paid too much of his Hollywood money on taxes.

"I've paid more than a wise businessman would have," he said in the interview. "I don't have and never had the money people think I got ... and it's none of their business."

Tags: crocodile dundee, Paul Hogan, taxes

Comments

(9)

Wednesday 01 September

By usaguy45

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u tell em paul!

By howard

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Loved that movie.

By Jalapeno

Don't know a thing about Australian tax laws, and with the US tax laws changing more often than is necessary, how can anyone keep track.
It was my understanding that US taxes shall be used for the betterment of it's country, and it's people.
Don't see that happening.

Thursday 02 September

By Karen

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Right--it (every bit of it) goes to pay just the interest to the Federal Reserve and the world banking cartel which has controlled every president of the US since Abraham Lincoln. Do the research--Read The Creature From Jeckle Island by G. Edward Griffin. You will then understand.

By Zippertheslipper

Tell ya this, Paul Croc Hogan is a decent gent, I don't think he would go about tax dodging and such, and besides at 70, let him have his monies and let him retire affordably. As for the bugger off, I needs to check the dictionary or the Funk and Wagnal to see what the heck that term means.

By Aussie girl

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Be a man and pay what you owe

By Lori

Really....pay what you owe and be done with it. At least you can afford it, I pay my fair share and I CAN'T afford it.

By Tiffany

That has to be a totally inflated number! 38 MILLION?!

Friday 03 September

By Jenny Bell

The ATO should hang their heads in shame , they are simply covering their own backsides in trying to justify the exorbitant money it costs to run their departments ....One arrest , for a 300.000 dollar debt, in all their years ...does not justify the millions it cosst the Aussie taxpayer , to fund their "dubious" investigations!!!!
Hoges has brought more money into this country, in tourism , via his adds & the Croc Dundee movies ...than anyone else ....To the ATO ...like Hoges says ...BUGGER OFF!!! & go do something else to justify your wages !!!!(Which by the way ..ALL Australians PAY for !!

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