Hogan lashes out at tax office 'A-holes'

Posted August 17, 2011 19:31:47

Actor Paul Hogan is still bitter about an Australian Taxation Office inquiry into his financial affairs, describing its investigators as "A-holes".

The Crocodile Dundee star is back in Sydney to attend a charity dinner with Hawke government tourism minister John Brown.

But Hogan lost none of his bitterness when asked about the tax office.

"A-holes," he told Macquarie Radio on Wednesday.

"I had no problem with Australia, I had a problem with a handful of bureaucrats in the tax office who were determined to put me in my place."

Hogan told The Australian on Wednesday he was prepared to sit down and have a chat with the tax office, but he did not sound too enthusiastic about a settlement being reached when interviewed on radio later in the day.

"If they'll sit down where I can see them and reach them and talk common sense, because I figure I've been made the scapegoat," he said.

As part of Operation Wickenby, the Australian Crime Commission in 2005 seized documents from Hogan's manager John Cornell.

The crime watchdog dropped its five-year investigation into Hogan's tax affairs in November last year, but in April Hogan lost a Federal Court attempt to stop the ATO accessing those documents.

The multi-agency investigation into high-profile Australians cost $300 million.

"If they can crucify me, that'll show they're still in power, you still should be terrified of the tax office, and they didn't waste all those millions," Hogan said.

"They have unlimited resources, so you spend a million, they'll spend 10 and they don't care how much of it they spend, they'll spend $20 million to nail someone for two, because they've got to keep that image of the undefeatable tax department up."


Topics: human-interest, actor, film-movies, arts-and-entertainment, australia, united-states