Crocodile Dundee star Paul Hogan has been banned from leaving Australia by the Australian Taxation Office. It took the ATO several years, but it's finally cracking down on Hogan's tax fraud.
As reported here, High Court documents show that Hogan misled US and Australian tax authorities with the neat claim that he was a resident in neither country. How did he do it? Pretty simple really. Hogan lived in Australia between 2002 and 2005. Then, he returned to the US. When he left the US he told the American authorities he was coming to Australia permanently. When he went back to the US in 2005 he told Australian authorities he had only come back to Australia for a temporary visit. And of course, to bolster his case he used off shore tax havens .
His tax advisors: Ernst & Young. Nice one E&Y. It shows how the firm colluded with the rich to help them avoid paying tax.
Now, Hogan has been banned from leaving Australia. The ATO slapped him with a Departure Prohibition Order when he returned to Sydney last week for the funeral of his mother, Flo. It prevents Hogan from leaving Australia for any foreign country until his alleged tax debt is paid or otherwise settled. He owes the Australian public $A12 million in unpaid taxes.
Did anybody with an average amount of intellect ever believed that Hogan could have had the brains to enter into such a sophisticated tax avoidance scheme? Well, obviously, if Hogan had this kind of intellect he would have also been able to not only devise the strategy that placed Australia on the world map as a tourist destination, but also create the original artistic work that was the basis for the film. No wonder the probe into the real perpetrators of this enormous tax avoidance scheme is still continuing.