Skip to main content

Paul Hogan has scored a big victory in his fight with the taxman


Paul Hogan has scored a big victory in his fight with the taxman - the Australian Crime Commission is ready to stump up millions of dollars to pay his legal bills.In a humiliating backdown, the commission has returned tens of thousands of the actor's financial documents. They were seized from his accountants three years ago as part of an investigation into claims he hid millions of dollars in a complex web of overseas trusts. Hogan claimed legal privilege over the documents. Many were mistakenly deleted because of a technical glitch, lawyers for the commission admitted before Justice Arthur Emmett in the Federal Court yesterday. Hogan's lawyers argued that anyone who viewed any of 35 seized documents should be excluded from taking part in further investigations. Barrister Tim Game, SC, for the ACC, said Hogan's application to exclude those who viewed the documents from the investigation would cripple the authority's efforts. The ACC said outside court yesterday's move didn't affect its wider Operation Wickenby probe of tax fraud and evasion, and money laundering. The ATO would not comment. But a relaxed Hogan, 69, back on home turf for a new movie, was not so discreet, saying he hated bullies.
"I'm waiting for the feds to come and grab me," he joked. The ACC has agreed to pay some of Hogan's legal costs going back to 2006, estimated at up to $5 million. The ACC has spent at least $5 million investigating Hogan and it has not finished. Mr Game said it had done nothing improper or illegal and the investigation was continuing. Justice Emmett adjourned the case to December 8. Hogan, who begins filming Charlie & Boots in Warrnambool on Monday, also had a few words to say about Australian tourism promotions. The "Where The Bloody Hell Are You?" campaign had been embarrassing, and the new Australia-based series "doesn't set me on fire".
The star of the enormously successful 1980s "Throw Another Shrimp on the Barbie" campaign said promoting scenery rather than the Australian people was a mistake.
"They missed the whole point. Hospitality was what we were selling," he said.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Timothy “Fuzzy” Timms, a 45-year-old member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle club, stood up Monday for his First Amendment right to freedom of expressi

Timothy “Fuzzy” Timms, a 45-year-old member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle club, stood up Monday for his First Amendment right to freedom of expression. Timms, a resident of the San Diego community of South Park, refused to take off a black leather vest with the motorcycle club's “death's head” insignia when he reported for jury duty. He's a big burly man, 5 feet 8 inches, 250 pounds, with a full beard and auburn-colored, shoulder-length hair. At 7:45 a.m., Timms' stance got him booted from the San Diego Superior Court's Hall of Justice by sheriff's deputies, along with another Hells Angel who also refused to remove his insignia vest. Nine hours later, representatives of both the Superior Court and the sheriff's department apologized to Timms and club member Mick Rush for “misunderstanding” an order issued April 24 by Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser. Rush also had been reporting for jury duty. “It all boils down to a misunderstanding of Judge Fraser'
Post a Comment
Read more

Rashawn and Deon Beneby Someone mowed down the brothers, some 15 yards apart, on a grassy strip

''They may have been into drugs but they didn't do anything to harm anybody,'' said their aunt, Cheryl Watkins. ``It was cold-blooded murder to lay them out like that.''Miami-Dade County's 80th and 81st homicides of 2008: Rashawn and Deon Beneby, brothers and suspects in a string of violent robberies, shot dead Thursday afternoon next to the Liberty City middle school they once attended. ''It's cold-blooded, outright killing out there -- and we're not even in the summer yet,'' said the Rev. Richard Dunn, a community activist who lives three blocks away. Witnesses said a group of men were gathered outside an apartment at the Annie Coleman Gardens housing project when the shooting started.Someone mowed down the brothers, some 15 yards apart, on a grassy strip next to the chain-link fence that separates the community from the baseball field at Charles R. Drew Middle School, 1801 NW 60th St. Rashawn was executed -- shot in the head an
2 comments
Read more

LaAunzae was a Vice Lord, and Donald Ragland was a Gangster Disciple

2005 execution-style murder in Frayser was a case marked by "gangs, guns and death." And not incidentally, they added, there was an element of revenge when defendant Donald Ragland Jr. shot 26-year-old LaAunzae Grady three times in the back on a cold December afternoon outside of St. Elmo's Market."He didn't have a problem taking this job, because LaAunzae had killed his brother five or six years before this," gang unit prosecutor Ray Lepone told a Criminal Court jury. "LaAunzae was a Vice Lord, and Donald Ragland was a Gangster Disciple."Asst. Public Defender Trent Hall said prosecutors would not be able to prove their case and asked jurors to acquit Ragland, 27, of first-degree murder.On Wednesday, jurors watched a surveillance video from the store that showed an apparently nervous Grady looking out the front door of the store several times before finally leaving.A half-dozen loud gunshots then quickly follow, though the shooting on the outside p
Post a Comment
Read more