Tax Stories
Tax Stories
Ep.54 Philip Baker - a Latvian tax lawyer
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Ep.54 Philip Baker - a Latvian tax lawyer

Philip Baker is a barrister (37 y), King's Counsel, lecturer at the University of Oxford, LLM, PhD, MBA, an author of a book on Double Taxation Conventions, “A guru on treaty and and cross-border tax”.

In 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 operate;

  • work-life balance;

  • minimum standards and best practices of protection of taxpayers;

  • how AI can get it wrong when assisting the tax administration;

  • the Post Office scandal, and the reports by Dan Neidle and the TV series - on how lives of so many people were ruined because of a software mistake;

  • how a person can make Philip angry;

  • principles in life he’s been following;

  • a book Philip recommends - “Banking on Failure”, Cum-Ex and Why and How Banks Game the System by Richard S Collier; there was an interesting video of the book launch where Philip discusses the scheme together with Richard; the book itself:

    • includes a detailed description of cum-ex trade - the biggest tax fraud of its type in Europe;

    • has a never-before-seen explanation of the step-by-step evolution of a complex tax-driven structured financial product;

    • addresses the root causes of why banks are driven to create highly complex structured tax products;

    • contributes to the understanding of banks and their roles in exploiting tax systems;

  • ethical obligations of tax lawyers not to advise on abusing the law;

  • what enables tax fraud;

  • the directions tax systems might advance to; Philip predicts:

    • non-dom tax rules will be abolished this year or the next;

    • digital services taxes will be implemented as the moratorium on it ends this June, and Pillar 1 is not going to happen; with the different DST systems a threat of double taxation will become relevant;

    • mostly big accounting companies are going to benefit from Pillar 2, not governments, because of huge compliance costs;

  • why the progressive taxation is fair, incl. reduction of inequality;

  • that a family taking an online business to Gibraltar had a tax dispute in the UK for 23 years;

  • a pro-bono case at the European Court of Human Rights;

  • we even discussed some politics too, incl. Brexit and the US president elections.

Discussion about this podcast

Tax Stories
Tax Stories
Do you want to grow your business and get an inspiration for your life, by learning from the thought leaders? Less taxes, more life stories.. And yes, 'What is your version of meaning of life?' I ask to all my guests. This podcast is for entrepreneurs and professionals who want to learn from inspiring life stories, uncover impactful business principles, discover the books and strategies that shaped their success, and explore practical solutions for improving taxation systems. Join us on this journey of the most interesting tax stories! Subscribe now to stay updated! For Tax Stories blogs, please visit Tax Stories Substack: janistax.substack.com. There is my angel girl in the heaven who once in the kindergarten wrote a prayer, wishing there is no poverty. So, this is my contribution to the society. That also reminds me every day – why we are here, and the time is scarce.
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