THE RICH & FAMOUS DIPPING & DODGING THE TAX MAN!

Actor Alec Baldwin has joined a list of elite New Yorkers targeted by tax collectors who think they're fibbing about where they really live to dodge New York City income taxes.

In recent years, auditors have confronted hundreds of super-wealthy New Yorkers over the residency rules - including star Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter.

Facing shrinking revenues, the state has ramped up its pursuit of suspected tax dodgers, hiring 189 new auditors and - for the first time - making filers swear under oath on tax forms as to how many days they "spend in New York City."

If it's more than 183 days and the filer has a residence in the city, the tax bill goes up.

Baldwin, star of NBC's "30 Rock," owns a three-bedroom co-op on Central Park West, a house in the Hamptons and a pad near his daughter in Los Angeles.

He spends lots of time in the city doing the show, but claims the Hamptons as home base. That made him one of hundreds of people slapped with an audit in 2009.

"The moment you start working regularly [in the city], the city finance people come after you," Baldwin recently told an audience at City College.

Neither Baldwin nor tax officials would discuss his case with the Daily News.

Tax expert Barry Horowitz said the aggressive tactics are designed to boost the state's coffers.

"Everybody is looking for more money. Everybody is increasing scrutiny of tax returns," said Horowitz, a Manhattan accountant. He said 40% of his clients' audits are over residency rules.

Such audits require taxpayers to assemble an arsenal of documents - credit card receipts, bank, telephone and computer records - to prove where they were on specific days.

Auditors grill taxpayers on where their children go to school and where their doctors and clergy are located. They also comb through records looking for parking tickets or rental agreements that may show the filer is fibbing about spending 183 days or fewer in the city.

Brad Maione, a spokesman for the state Department of Taxation and Finance, said officials completed 2,273 audits involving residency challenges in the fiscal year ending March 30, 2009.

That's 9% above the previous year. Until this year, the form merely asked if the filer or spouse maintained "living quarters in N.Y.C." This year, it will demand: "Enter the number of days spent in N.Y.C. in 2010 (any part of a day spent in N.Y.C. is considered a day)."

State officials say they did this to clear up ambiguity, but Horowitz said the new requirement hikes the pressure to come clean. A filer who lies could face fraud charges and open the door to more extensive audits.

Most residency audits hit wealthy people who claim to live out of the state entirely. But about 25% involve people, like Baldwin, who concede they live in the state part time. The 596 city residency audits done in 2009 generated $239 million in additional revenue.

Many audits bring bad news.

Jeter resolved his tax issue privately in 2008, then put his 5,400-square-foot co-op up for sale.

Not everyone loses, though.

Billionaire hedge-fund investor Julian Robertson, who owns a co-op in the city but claims to work fewer than 184 days here, was challenged over residency for the year 2000.

At a hearing, he produced an assistant who kept detailed records contending Robertson spent just 182 days in the city. The panel voted 2-to-1 to give him the benefit of the doubt - saving him $27 million.

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