OZschwitz serf, Paul Hogan, served a departure prohibition order over tax

ONCE the face of Australia overseas, Paul Hogan has been prevented from leaving the country because of alleged tax debts.

The Crocodile Dundee star's lawyers said he returned to Australia last week for his mother's funeral and was served a departure prohibition order, stopping him from leaving until the disputed sum is paid or settled.
Paul Hogan ... told he has to stay in Australia.

Paul Hogan ... told he has to stay in Australia. Photo: Robert Gunstone

''He is stunned and very disappointed that the government could treat him as a flight risk,'' Paul Robinson, from Robinson Legal, said in a statement.

''Paul continues to vehemently deny any wrongdoing. The process of detaining [him] … away from his wife and child in Los Angeles has devastated Paul,'' the statement said.

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Australia is a police state which makes the Soviet Union look attractive:Hogan's Californian agent

Australia is a police state which makes the Soviet Union look attractive, according to Paul Hogan's Californian talent agent, who expressed outrage that the tax commissioner has barred his client from leaving Australia.

''You are living a police state in Australia,'' Douglas Urbanski said yesterday. ''I'm glad I'm not there.''

''At some point, there's going to be an enormous public backlash about their [the Australian government's] conduct and their treatment of Paul Hogan as a bank robber or a thief.''
Paul Hogan ... told he has to stay in Australia.

Paul Hogan ... told he has to stay in Australia. Photo: Robert Gunstone

Meanwhile, tax experts were surprised the tax commissioner had used the ''draconian'' measure of a departure prohibition order to restrict Mr Hogan.

The orders are only used against indebted taxpayers who are flight risks and errant parents who show an intention to skip out on a child support debt.

According to reports, Mr Hogan has been handed tax bills on $37.6 million of alleged undeclared income. The investigation into Hogan's affairs is part of Operation Wickenby.

Under the Taxation Administration Act 1953, the commissioner must have ''reasonable grounds'' to believe it is ''desirable'' to prevent the indebted taxpayer from leaving Australia without either paying the debt or making arrangements to pay it.

Professor Graeme Cooper of the University of Sydney said departure prohibition orders were almost never used.

''It would only ever make sense … if they were fleeing from the face of the earth, but if they had assets here or were going to a country with which we had a tax treaty there seems little point in restricting their movements.''

Professor Cooper said the order was probably tactical.

''The government has invested a lot of money in funding Operation Wickenby and so far has very little to show for it either in terms of prosecutions or revenue and penalties collected.''

Steve Stevens, a tax partner at Freehills and the president of the Law Institute of Victoria, said the powers were ''draconian''.

''The commissioner can't just willy-nilly issue these orders … they have to have grounds to believe that there is a risk [of] the revenue not being paid.''

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Hoges vows to take on 'ATO cretins'

His lawyers had begged him to be a little less punchy but in his first public utterance since being grounded by the Tax Office, Paul Hogan vowed to fight the buggers even with one hand tied behind his back.

The 70-year-old actor threatened to sue the Tax Office, the Australian Crime Commission and the government, calling them cretins with no class after they used a visit for his mother's funeral to impose a departure prohibition order on him, preventing him from flying home to the United States.

He told A Current Affair last night that authorities were planning to bankrupt him by keeping him here and seizing his assets so that he would have to give up the fight over a tax bill reported to be nearly $100 million.

''That's the plan. It sounds devious, I know, but that's the fact,'' Hogan said.

The entertainer is under investigation as part of the Operation Wickenby probe into offshore tax avoidance schemes. He has been issued with an amended assessment, of which he said he could pay only 10 per cent by selling everything - but ''bugger 'em''.

Australian authorities, he said, were ''absolutely desperate to nail some high-profile character with money'' to justify the $300 million expense of Wickenby, which has recovered $193.31 million in tax collections since 2006.

It has charged 57 people, convicted 10 and has 24 criminal investigations continuing.

Threatening to sue the Australian authorities for a malicious prosecution, he described as a ''cretin'' the person who labelled him a flight risk and grounded him. Hogan said he had returned to Australia more than once each year since the seven-year-old investigation began.

''If I was a tax evader, which I'm not, I must be the dumbest one in the world to keep coming back here,'' he said. ''The last time I put in my tax I was … working on the Harbour Bridge. After that it got too complicated for me to ever do it.''

Since stardom arrived, when he ''probably went past David Jones'' in income, he had never asked his financial advisers about the destination of his money and ''just rather stupidly trusted the experts'', he said.

''You hire people to do that because I'm the goose that lays the golden egg. I don't make money by sitting around working out, 'Ooh, if I shipped over to Lithuania …'''

He repeated his denial of allegations that he had used offshore trusts to avoid tax and had lied about his residency for tax purposes. He had in fact paid ''more than a wise businessman would've'' in Australia.

In the only meeting where he gave instructions about his tax, after moving to the United States in 1988, he said he opted to keep paying tax in Australia, though US authorities put a stop to it seven years later.

The allegation that he had been stateless for tax purposes arose because he and wife, Linda Kozlowski, had moved back to the US to be with her dying mother, he said.

''My lawyer has advised me that it's not helping the case to call them boofheads and things like that,'' he said, later admitting that ''it's sort of backfired''.

''I make light of it because if I don't make light of it … I will just be this angry, seething old man. I just want two hands to fight with.''

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OZschwitz serf, Paul Hogan, served a departure prohibition order over tax

OZschwitz serf, Paul Hogan, served a departure prohibition order over tax

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