Taxman captures Australia's Crocodile Dundee

Aug 25, 2010, 12:00 GMT

Sydney - Millionaire actor-director Paul Hogan, the former Sydney Harbour Bridge scaffolder behind the 1986 box-office hit Crocodile Dundee, has been stopped from leaving the country by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), news reports said Wednesday.

Hogan, who was visiting from the US for his mother's funeral, stands accused of using private trusts and offshore havens to avoid tax on 37 million Australian dollars (33 million US dollars) of undeclared income.

The Herald Sun newspaper, which estimated that the ATO could have hit Hogan for at least 15 million Australian dollars, revealed Hogan received a Departure Prohibition Order on Friday preventing him from leaving Australia until any tax debt is paid.

Lawyer Andrew Robinson said his client was upset by the ruling as no tax-related charges have been laid against Hogan.

'He's stunned and very disappointed that the government could treat him as a flight risk,' Robinson told the paper. 'Paul continues to vehemently deny any wrongdoing.'

Crocodile Dundee, which earned 350 million US dollars at the box office, remains Australia's most successful film.

'Come and get me you miserable bastards,' Hogan said last year after the ATO enlisted the help of US tax authorities to get a look at his US bank accounts.

Three years ago Hogan sold his Australian properties and moved permanently to Santa Barbara, California, where he lives with wife and Crocodile Dundee co-star Linda Kozlowski, a US citizen.

In 2006, when the ATO began its investigation, 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.