Taxation: "Crocodile Dundee" can't escape Australia, say tax authorities

Hogan is one of many people under investigation in Project Wickenby, a long-term investigation into alleged tax evasion by Australian citizens and residents. The allegations centre around offshore income and offshore investment schemes.

The Australian Tax Office has called Hogan for questioning on several occasions over a period of years and wherever he has been in the world, he has attended those meetings, his lawyers say. In a statement issued on behalf of Hogan, Robinson Legal, the Australian law firm, say "He believes that he retained competent advisers in every jurisdiction in which he conducted business and filed returns in accordance with their advice. He denies the liability asserted by the ATO and has filed objections which have not been the subject of any response from the ATO."

But the "I was advised to do it" defence rarely succeeds: all over the world, tax authorities point out that the liability to pay all tax due falls on the taxpayer. If the taxpayer receives incorrect advice, most tax authorities argue, that's potentially grounds for a civil action against the adviser.

Hogan has flown into and out of Australia on several occasions during the investigation - twice to appear in films being made in Aus. He has extensive family ties including children and grandchildren Robinsons say that Hogan "believes that this exercise is a manifestly unfair attempt to gain leverage by the ATO" by "detaining Paul in Australia away from his wife and child in Los Angeles."

The ATO has not made any statement as to why, on this occasion, they served Hogan with a notice preventing him leaving the jurisdiction. After all, Robinsons say "Following 5 years of intrusive investigations by the ACC and ATO, no charges have been laid."

However, the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) has recently said that Hogan's income in 2004 was artificially deflated: the ACC allege that he claimed that he made a deductible interest repayment of AUD910,000 which rendered his income which is chargeable to tax as less than AUD17,000. The ACC says that the loan upon which interest was said to be paid was, in fact, a fiction and that a subsequent dispute over the loan interest was faked to give credence to the story as to the repayment. Hogan denies that was the case.