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The tax practice of Sorainen is led by Janis Toukacs who is noted by his peers for his ability in tax controversy. The firm has expertise across a full range of tax issues and have tax personnel in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Their clients include ... [more]

The tax practice of Sorainen is led by Janis Toukacs who is noted by his peers for his ability in tax controversy. The firm has expertise across a full range of tax issues and have tax personnel in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Their clients include multinational companies operating in the Baltics such as Swedbank, Statoil Latvia and DHL Latvia and they represent several financial institutions active in the region. Toukacs' litigation expertise was crucial to the Industrialais Terminals case heard before the Constitutional Court of Latvia this year. This was the first VAT case ever heard before this court . The revenue authorities had denied the company a VAT refund for overpayments made since 2000, citing a change in law in 2003 which meant that refunds could not be claimed more than three years after the year to which the refund relates. At first instance, this had prevented the company from recovering tax overpaid before 2003 though the company had applied for the refund before the change in law. However, Toukacs cited the Latvian constitution to convince the court that the client should be entitled to the refund. The court declared part of the law incompatible with the Latvian constitution and invalid. The firm's capability in cross-border structuring is reflected in its advice to Heidelberg Balticum in the restructuring of their group. Subsidiaries across the Baltics were merged into an Estonian entity, leaving branch operations in the other countries. The firm had to ensure that carry forward losses were maintained for the benefit of the new entity as well as ensuring efficient tax treatment for all of its Baltic operations, particularly in respect of VAT charges.