Hollywood veteran Robert De Niro has paid off a $6.4 million (£4 milion) tax debt after officials accidentally sent the bill to the wrong address.

The Raging Bull star was hit with a lien for failing to hand over the sum, and he paid off the amount in full just hours after he learned about the debt on Thursday (26Feb15).

De Niro's lawyer, Tom Harvey, blamed the late payment on a mix-up over the actor's address, telling the New York Daily News, "If they sent the bill to the right address, it would have gotten paid sooner,” while the star's spokesman, Stan Rosenfield, adds, "(They sent it) to an old address, currently an unoccupied commercial building... Once Mr. De Niro learned of this tax delinquency, he had a cheque for the full amount hand-delivered to the Irs (America's Internal Revenue Service)."