Paul Hogan and his tax controller have helpless their battle to keep their identities secret in their legal stoush with the Australian Crime Commission.
Hogan and Tony Stewart are the subjects of Operation Wickenby, a combined Australian Tax Office and crime commission investigation into serious tax fraud and money laundering by wealthy Australian sports stars, entertainers and businesspeople victimisation offshore accounts in foreign tax havens.
Federal Court Judge Arthur Emmett today arranged that "the sealed envelopes containing the names of MM and DD ... be opened and be made available for public inspection".
Justice Emmett has also arranged that some details of the crime commission's investigation, which have been unbroken secret for the past 2� years, be released to the public.
Lawyers for media organisations Fairfax Media and News Ltd were successful in their application to hold lifted the suppression order identifying the Crocodile Dundee star and his adviser, Mr Stewart.
The crime commission had ab initio supported Hogan's lawyers in having the names suppressed on the basis that revealing them might bond inquiries.
However, Tim Game, SC, for the commission, told the court of justice that the law enforcement organisation no longer supported the name calling being unbroken secret.
The fact that Hogan is being investigated by the ATO and criminal offense commission has been an ill-kept secret.
The popular entertainer recently confirmed to the Nine Network's 60 Minutes that the ATO was pursuing him.
He said that he was "insulted to be called a assess cheat" and that he had paid more than his bonnie share of tax.
"Right now they owe me, I think. They should have a statue of me in the Tax Office," Hogan said.
Tax authorities think that Hogan avoided paying tax after channelling millions of dollars earned from the tremendously successful Crocodile Dundee cinema into seaward tax havens.
On Monday, Hogan, who now lives in California, will be pickings legal action in the United States to adjudicate to keep down five summonses issued by US tax investigators world Health Organization are questioning into his financial records in the US on behalf of the Australian Tax Office.
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