Today I read the shameful story of how the Australian Taxation Office has used heavy handed tactics against someone, in this case Paul Hogan, the well known Australian comedian and actor who starred in the movie Crocodile Dundee. Paul Hogan now resides in the USA.

Read on to find out about the principles behind this high profile case.

The ATO, being the small minded petty bureaucrats that they are, waited until Paul Hogan was visiting Australia for his mother’s funeral to spring their trap. Although the dispute is a civil one, and they have not proven their case, or even charged him, they slapped a departure prohibition on Paul Hogan. They have also taken the opportunity to increase their claim from $37 million up to $150 million. If Paul Hogan attempted to leave the country, he could be arrested upon exit. This is a bit of a problem, since his wife doesn’t live in Australia and I can’t see any good reason that she would want to visit a country that may arbitrarily detain her.

As soon as he entered the country, the tax office were immediately alerted by immigration. Originally, when this matter started back in 2005, Hogan’s financial adviser was raided at dawn by armed police who rushed past the financial adviser’s wife and woke their daughter by shining a torch in her face and demanded that she get out of bed.

The facts of the case are that they want to tax him for income when he was not an Australian resident. Non residents of Australia are not ordinarily subject to Australian tax.

The principles are that the government will stop at nothing to persecute someone who is high profile, irrespective of the merits of the case. This is used  as a fear tactic. The government also sees money as far more important than individual rights. Paul Hogan has not been convicted of any crime, or even charged, despite this issue going for some years. Nevertheless, he has been treated as a criminal and deprived of his freedom.

Update: Now Paul Hogan has been allowed to leave the country and return to his family, by lodging a security with the Australian Taxation Office.

What does this mean for you? You need to realise that if you are a producer, that is someone who generates wealth rather than receiving money from the government, then “they” see you as their property, and want everything you have, even if you have already paid your share. The taxation system in most countries is consuming more and more of the wealth, giving nothing back in return. To keep the status quo, governments will stop at nothing. Bullying is their latest tactic – relying on fear.

Tax is more important to governments than anything, including public security. The sentences given out to tax evaders (note: Paul Hogan has never been even charged with this) are far more severe than those given out to criminals who rob and bash old people, or child molesters, or often even murderers.

Government has become a cancer on our society. It doesn’t provide protection, it simply takes money as an expectation, in the same way that a slave is expected to work, keeping working people on a treadmill. It wastes massive amounts of money. Do you really think that you get $50,000 worth of benefits if you pay that much in tax? At the same time, it tramples on fundamental freedoms, all to keep itself extending and growing.

Even if you do everything by the book, they will try to catch you out. Paul Hogan is no dummy. He used the best tax advice available. Even if he didn’t, morally it is a civil matter, not something requiring criminal enforcement. The only solution is to fly beneath the radar, to not stand out in any way. Most people are not high profile in a personal sense and that is good. Taxation enforcement is based on data mining and finding people who stand out – deductions that are larger than normal, things that don’t fit the average. Once they lock onto something like that, they have basically unlimited resources to crush you.

The long term implication is that you need to have multiple passports where possible, and have assets overseas, not just in your home country. If worst comes to worst, you can simply get out before they get too heavy handed (and get to the point of prohibiting your departure).

It is a sad situation where a prominent and successful Australian is treated in this way by his country, or more to the point by the small people who achieve nothing but get their feeling of significance from pulling someone down and using arbitrary power. I hope that justice is done and that the tax office apologises for their treatment of Paul Hogan and ceases their harassment of him.

Tags: ATO, crocodile dundee, Paul Hogan, taxation

This entry was posted on Friday, August 27th, 2010 at 10:53 pm and is filed under Wealth and work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.