If you find the text too small to read on this website, press the CTRL button and,
without taking your finger off, press the + button, which will enlarge the text.
Keep doing it until you have a comfortable reading size.
(Use the - button to reduce the size)

Today's quote:

Saturday, August 14, 2010

"Come and get me, you miserable bastards."


That's how actor Paul Hogan challenged the Australian Taxation Office in July 2008.

The tax office has risen to the challenge and now accuses him of evading tax on almost $39 million of undeclared income and considers him an Australian for tax purposes, despite the Crocodile Dundee star living and paying taxes in the US for a number of years.

The tax bill is the first punitive action taken against Hogan by the tax office, which along with the Australian Crime Commission has been pursuing the actor as part of a tax probe into the use of offshore accounts.

The size of the bill is not known, but if Hogan is assessed at the highest marginal rate of 40 per cent, the tax office is likely to have demanded a base payment of $15 million, as well as interest charges from the date the tax was due and additional penalties that could be as high as 75 per cent of the base bill.

According to documents obtained by The Weekend Australian, the tax office has told Hogan it is considering him an Australian resident for tax purposes for the years 1987 to 2005.

During eight of those years - from 1995 to 2002 - Hogan paid tax in the US where he now permanently resides.

From 2002 to 2005 Hogan lived in Australia.