Shows
The Pursuit of Scrappiness202. Tax Expert Reveals How Startups Can Take Advantage of Tax Opportunities, Where the Baltics Rank in Competitiveness Globally & How to Use Niche Content to Build Your Personal Brand w/ Janis Taukacs (Sorainen)Janis Taukacs is a seasoned tax advisor and partner at Sorainen law firm, where he leads the tax and customs practice. He has nearly 30 years of experience across the Baltics and internationally. Known for his deep expertise in corporate taxation, international structuring, and tax dispute resolution, Janis is also a passionate content creator, running the “Tax Stories” blog and podcast. Through his work, he bridges complex legal frameworks with practical insights for founders, investors, and global businesses navigating tax systems.On this episode we talk about:Baltic Tax Systems ExplainedOpportunities and Risks of Distributed Teams and Remo...
2025-05-1353 min
Tax Stories: Life, Business & TaxTrailer: Let's have some AI funThis is a nice example of how quickly the AI progresses. AI created a conversation about the 'Tax Stories' podcast and blogs on Substack. Can you tell the difference if it's run by real people?Dalies un iegūstiPārsūti šo QR kodu uz Tax Stories Substack kontu draugam, ieliec cc janis.taukacs@sorainen.com un saņem uzaicinājumu uz nodokļu Whatsapp grupu (jaunumi, komentāri, jautājumi). This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus...
2024-10-2009 min
Tax Stories: Life, Business & TaxRaigo Uukkivi on Estonian approach to taxIn the podcast you will learn:Why Estonia considers revoking the reduced CIT for regular dividends and other ‘unprecedented’ changes to the tax law?Which are those coming changes in the tax law?About the recent fuss in the media - why tax administration might want to have data from banks about aggregated amounts going through bank accounts of companies, and what is the cause of the misunderstanding?What are the means - how the administration tries to be business-friendly?How Estonia manages to collect more taxes with a 3x sm...
2024-06-0754 min
Tax Stories: Life, Business & TaxBernard Peeters - acting as a businessmanYou will also discover about:what principles did Bernard and his colleagues apply to grow from ~20 tax lawyers in 1990s when he started to more than 120 tax lawyers now and to become Tier 1 tax boutique;what pricing principles to apply in order not to compromise on quality?the book Bernard recommends: The World is Flat by the Pulitzer Prize -winning author Thomas L. Friedman and we both agreed that many publications by Simon Sinek are inspiring, including Start With Why;what could be ‘the Why’ of Tiberghien?how to sepa...
2024-04-291h 09
Tax Stories: Life, Business & TaxSandis Ozoliņš - joprojām mācosPodkāstā runājām par:šī brīža mērķiem;NHL skauta darba specifika;viņa no Sanhosē Sharks laikiem aizgūto plānošanas rutīnu;kādus principus Sandis no NHL aizguvis priekš sava biznesa - pacietību, gaidot rezultātu, plānošanu, patstāvību, komandas darbu;uzvarētāja mentalitāti;golfu Latvijā - vai tas ir peļņu nesošs bizness;kam jānotiek, lai Latvijā dzimtu golfa superzvaigzne (te var vecāki pieteikt savus bērnus uz Ozo golfa skolas nodarbībām);
2024-04-061h 15
Tax Stories: Life, Business & TaxEp.56 Pēteris Strautiņš - Latvijā dzīvot ir interesantiKopumā pēc intervijas palika gaišs, pozitīvs skats uz dzīvi, komplektā ar atziņu, ka nodokļu sistēma diez vai būtiski ietekmē ekonomikas attīstību valstī.Savukārt, VID nereti ir tikai vēstnesis, kas ‘redzot tādas bilances, kur pat akmenim jāraud’, pasaka biznesam, ka tā modelis nav ilgtspējīgs.Turklāt, ēnu ekonomikas sarukums var samazināt pieprasījumu pēc skaidras naudas.Un ar saukli ‘es nemaksāju nodokļus, jo neticu valstij’ patiesībā cilvēks varbūt meklē attaisnojumu savai rīcībai.Tax Stories podkāstā vēl r...
2024-03-251h 07
Tax Stories: Life, Business & TaxThomas Hoppe (Schwarz Group, GER) - TaxPunk TaxpeditionsIn the Tax Stories podcast (ep.55) we discussed:triathlon;the book recommendation - Taxtopia by an anonymous Rebel Accountant;TaxPunk video-podcast (in German) - with people who do and use tax tech;TaxPunk.de - tax IT tools data base (300+ tax IT solutions listed, mostly related to VAT and other taxes, but also regarding, e.g., audit management);what technologies tax authorities are using;beer tasting and its link to characterisation of the podcast guest;CBAM EU regulation IT solutions;blockchain solutions in...
2024-03-1856 min
Tax Stories: Life, Business & TaxPhilip Baker - a Latvian tax lawyerIn the podcast we discussed:his Order of the British Empire - for helping political refugees from China in the UK;his love to his family, sinology (the study of Chinese law, language, history, customs, and politics) and Arsenal;that there are already three generations of tax experts in his family - his father, himself and his son;his Latvian roots in several generations, and his involvement in developing the Latvian tax system;how a barrister can become a King’s Counsel; and the way how the Tax Chambers op...
2024-03-021h 25
Tax Stories: Life, Business & TaxBłażej Kuźniacki (POL) - harmony in taxIn the podcast we discussed:his favourite destinations in the world, book recommendations (incl. Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor E Frankl and The ONE Thing by Gary Keller) and hobbies, incl. singing rap in this song, some 14 years ago;how it is possible to combine both tax practice (policy and disputes) and academic research;tax policy vs law;Pillar 2 and offshores;arbitration for resolving tax disputes - the benefits of having it, and how to preserve neutrality;his book “Beneficial Ownership in International Taxation”; there are 3-5 j...
2024-02-201h 10
Tax Stories: Life, Business & TaxDr.Leopoldo Parada (CHI) - on creativityIn the podcast we discussed:his extravagant haircut and why he did not become a professional football player like he initially wanted to be;his homeland - Chile, and ‘10-cents war’ with Bolivia and Peru as a result of taxation there;a book One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez that changed Leopoldo’s life by inspiring to look at the creative side of life, and develop his own style of writing - to create emotions, be simple & don’t be afraid to entertain;Jorge Luis Borges is another book aut...
2024-02-031h 13
Tax Stories: Life, Business & TaxAndris Sīlis - pie mums viss ir lieliskiStarp citu, šī ir jau otrā saruna, kas ierakstīta klātienē. Ar Andri runājām:Par personīgo telpupar podkāstiem - kādēļ viņš klausās Džordanu Pītersonu;par golfu;kādēļ Andris nelieto soc-tīklus, bet lieto Duo Lingo un Chess.com, Katanu, u.c. galda spēlēm;iecienītākajiem ceļošanas galamērķiem un stāstu par to, kā Andris nonāca Meksikas narkotiku ceļu patruļas ielenkumā;Anna Kareņina u.c. vecākas grāmatas ir joprojām aktuālas, jo cilv...
2024-01-281h 17
Tax Stories: Life, Business & TaxSusi Baerentzen (DEN) – on doing things differentlyIn the podcast we spoke about:Extreme triathlon;Middle East;Why Susi wanted to be an air-force pilot;Why she switched from Big4 to academic work & inhouse;Past, present and future of being an inhouse;Why the AI and Legal/tax Tech look like the Emperor’s New Clothes;What question ChatGPT selected for Susi for the Tax Stories podcast;Her book on GAAR;On economic substance (vs. control) and the underlying principles & the future of holding companies and holding regimes in traditional holding jurisdictions; she thinks that the time of buying substance is over;Danish beneficial ownership ca...
2023-11-2053 min
Tax Stories: Life, Business & TaxEp.20 Edward Mwachinga & Theophilus Tawiah – Africa is RisingGiving back to the communityI had a lot of respect for my guest right at the start of the conversation when they told about their community work they do besides the work. How many of us can tell that one is at the board of a school or sponsoring a football club (Green Eagles)? On happiness and motivationIt appears the tax lawyers in Africa are not that different from the ones in the other continents – the are happy, if they make other people happy, and they get pumped up to do mor...
2021-12-0254 min
Tax Stories: Life, Business & TaxEp.10 Tomasz Michalik - Indirect tax practice leader of the yearVAT commentariesTomasz Michalik in not only a top tier tax partner of a top tier tax firm in Poland, but also an author of a more than 1000 pages book on commentaries to the Polish VAT law. Tomasz also described in short the essence of the VAT revolution for e-commerce as of 1 July 2021 throughout the EU – what are the main ideas and impact for consumers and businesses. One major change he highlighted is that the traders from outside the EU will not be able to sell to EU consumers without VAT under the roof of small value it...
2021-05-2438 min
Tax Stories: Life, Business & TaxTrailer - Episodes 1 - 3You can hear that the guests are amazing personalities, not only top tax and business professionals. I hope that stories of the guests and sharing my experiences of over 25 years in tax consulting will help you to see the ideas of: what you as a person can do differently, how your business can be improved, what we all can do to improve tax systems in the countries we live in. We will spread the light on cultural and historical sides of taxation from all over the world. I hope to open the doors for challenging everything we curr...
2021-03-1701 min