Crocodile Dundee star, Paul Hogan, being held in Australia until he can pay $150 million

Sydney (dpa) – Actor-director Paul Hogan will not be allowed out

of Australia until the Crocodile Dundee star pays a tax bill of

around 150 million Australian dollars (133 million US dollars), news

reports said Friday.

The former Sydney Harbour Bridge scaffold worker who achieved fame

and fortune with the 1986 smash-hit film was described as “horrified”

that the Australian Tax Office (ATO) was preventing him from

returning to his home in the United States.

Hogan, 70, visiting from the US for his mother’s funeral, stands

accused of using private trusts and offshore havens to avoid taxes on

37 million Australian dollars (33 million US dollars) of undeclared

income.

The Australian newspaper said documents it obtained showed the ATO

bill was so large because it included interest payments on tax debts

going back to 1986.

“The amount is more than he could put his hands on,” Andrew

Robinson, Hogan’s lawyer, told the paper.

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 Hogan’s 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.