Tax Stories E13 - Jens Svolgaard (Bolt) on e-commerce & personal development

 

Bolt

It takes a while for Jens Svolgaard to describe the complexity of different disruptive ideas Bolt (an Estonian unicorn with ~3k employees, 50M customers, 1.5m drivers in 40+ countries, 95% of drivers rated 4.9) has already implemented. Bolt scooter rides are now available in more than 100 cities across Europe, that highlights the company’s sustainability focus. 

Guitars

David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), Angus Young (AC/DC), Slash (Guns N’ Roses) – are the favourite guitar players of Jens, but the one on his Facebook profile is a replica of 1959, the one Slash used to play. 

Personal development

While having a break from business for more than a year Jens started to learn two therapist programmes about the personal development, better understanding of ourselves, that have transformed his life fundamentally. We are not our body and feelings, we have ones. The programmes help to find the wounds, open the lid and work with them. Once you sort these things out it reflects on quality of life and relationships, especially with the ones that matter the most. Jens is sure that if all world leaders would do the intro workshops of the Learning Love Institute program, we would have no wars on the planet. He also recommended some further reading on this and some links. 

Books:

• Eckhart Tolle: "The power of Now" & "A New Earth"
• Bessel Van Der Kolk: "The Body Keeps The Score"
• Pete Walker: "The Tao Of Fully Feeling"
• Peter A. Levine: "In An Unspoken Voice"
• John Bradshaw. "Healing The Shame That Binds You"
• Shefali Tsabary: "The Awakened Family"
• Stephen W. Porges. "The Polyvagal Theory"
• Marshall B. Rosenberg: "Nonviolent Communication"
• Krish & Amana Trobe: "The Learning Love Handbooks" 1, 2 and 3

Links:

• https://www.learningloveinstitute.com/
• https://pathretreats.com/
• https://www.baravara.se/
• https://www.hellingerinstitute.com/family-constellations-trainings/

Tax story

In the story part Jens remembers his experience when the corporate structures were driven by tax benefits, and that might lead to some absurd situations from today’s perspective where business decisions were taken depending on tax consequences, like if a person can move to a place where a better business can be done. 

Tax issues

It may seem that the tax treaty network of Estonia (61) is pretty decent, but if one compares to the network of the Netherlands (111) where the biggest competitor is based, Jens suggests that Bolt can feel the difference. 

Taxing consumption in addition to the consumption tax

OECD Pillar 1 (corporate taxation in the country of consumption, not where the value is created, in addition to the consumption taxes) seems to become an illogical burden on the business of e-commerce as well. 

The good and bad

Nevertheless, Estonia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden come to Jens mind when speaking of the best tax systems in the world, including their tax authorities. Jens considers the Digital Services tax as meaningless. The US, Brasil, India and some of the African countries come to Jens mind as the most difficult systems. Jens mentioned an example from the South Africa where an interest on a waived penalty was assessed by their tax authorities. 

Choosing outsourced advisors

As the main criteria besides capacity and experience is personalities of the advisors that would create the best synergies, notwithstanding if they work for Big4, or an international or local law firms. Not paying reasonable money for the top quality advice is the dumbest thing you can do in tax.