Law Firm Skarbiec

Tax Law · Corporate Structures · Cross-Border Advisory

Kancelaria Prawna Skarbiec is a boutique advisory firm with over twenty years of experience in the Polish and international legal services market. The firm was founded and is led by Robert Nogacki — a licensed legal counsel (radca prawny) registered with the Warsaw Bar of Legal Counsels under number WA-9026. We advise individual and corporate clients from over a dozen countries, integrating legal, tax, and accounting services within a single team — an arrangement that is the exception, not the norm, on the Polish market.

We publish over one hundred expert articles per year — in Polish and in English — on tax law, corporate structures, crypto-asset regulation, asset protection, and international law. This is not a corporate blog run by a marketing department. It is the way we think about law — and evidence that we think about it a great deal.

 

What we do

Our practice concentrates on the intersections of law, tax, and business strategy. We do not try to do everything. We do what we do better than most.

Tax disputes and fiscal audits. This is, historically, the strongest pillar of our practice. We represent businesses in tax audits, assessment proceedings, and administrative court litigation. Clients who have spent years battling the fiscal authorities — over withheld VAT refunds, disallowed deductions, indefinitely prolonged audits — often come to us as a last resort. We do not always win. But we rarely lose because we failed to check something.

International tax planning. We design tax structures for entrepreneurs operating across borders. Double tax treaties, economic substance, tax residency, CFC rules, withholding tax, transfer pricing — we work with jurisdictions across Europe and beyond, not because it sounds impressive, but because our clients’ problems do not stop at the border.

Corporate and holding structures. We create, restructure, and optimize ownership architectures — from simple limited liability companies to multi-tier holding groups. Transactional due diligence, contributions in kind, mergers and acquisitions. Every structure is tailored to the specific situation, because in corporate law, off-the-rack templates are like off-the-rack suits: they look fine in the shop and wrong on the person.

Crypto-asset and fintech regulation. We advise on MiCA compliance, CASP licensing, AML/KYC frameworks, token structuring, and DAC8 reporting. We began advising on crypto-assets in 2017 — before most law firms in Poland could spell “blockchain.” We combine regulatory knowledge with technological understanding, which in this market remains a scarce commodity.

Asset protection, family foundations, and succession planning. We help entrepreneurial families build structures that outlast a single generation. Family foundations (fundacja rodzinna), trusts, asset diversification, protection against operational and family risk. We do not recommend solutions more complex than the situation requires — because every unnecessary layer of complexity is a cost, a risk, and a point of failure.

Cross-border advisory. We serve entrepreneurs operating in multiple jurisdictions simultaneously. Exit tax, broken residency, substance requirements, the GAAR clause — these are not academic topics but real problems our clients face every day. We advise in Polish and English, because the boundaries of tax jurisdictions do not coincide with the boundaries of language.

 

Why clients stay

Many firms measure success by the number of new clients they acquire. We measure it by the number who return. Some of our client relationships span over a decade — people who came with a single question and stayed because they discovered that reliable legal counsel is not a one-off transaction but ongoing support in a regulatory environment that changes faster than anyone could track alone.

A long-standing relationship means we know the context. We understand the company’s history, the decisions that were made and why. There is no need to explain from scratch each time. This saves time and money — but above all, it allows us to advise better, because we see the film, not a single frame.

We operate through several specialized entities — Kancelaria Prawna Skarbiec sp.k., Skarbiec Corporate Services, and Skarbiec Accountancy — which allows us to integrate legal advisory, tax advisory, and accounting without the need to coordinate multiple external providers. The client has one partner to talk to and a team that sees the whole picture.

 

Our philosophy of counsel

The Lawyer as Strategist: On the Art of Counsel

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Sun Tzu wrote those words twenty-five centuries ago. Confucius taught that the wise man thinks first, speaks second, and acts only then. Lao Tzu observed that water—the softest of substances—wears away the hardest stone. These three principles define the role of a lawyer worth having on your side. A good lawyer is not the one who wins lawsuits. A good lawyer is the one who ensures there are no lawsuits to win. Every contract drafted with foresight, every risk identified in advance, every structure conceived for the long term—these are the battles that never had to be fought. Skarbiec Law Firm operates by this principle. We advise at every stage of a transaction—from initial conception through negotiation to years of monitoring performance. We do not wait for problems to arise. We prevent them.

Law as Battlefield: On the Art of Legal Strategy

“No plan survives contact with the enemy.” Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, chief of the Prussian general staff, uttered these words in the latter half of the nineteenth century. He won three wars and unified Germany—not because his plans were perfect, but because he had prepared for their imperfection. The phrase, quoted more often than it is understood, is not a celebration of improvisation. It is a warning against the illusion of control—and a summons to preparation so thorough that it can survive chaos.

The Eternal Problem of Unchecked Power

In 1887, the historian Lord Acton composed a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton that would yield one of the most enduring observations in political thought. “Power tends to corrupt,” Acton wrote, “and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He was not writing about tyrants or dictators. He was writing about popes—men who believed themselves to be acting in service of the highest good. This is precisely what makes his observation so unsettling, and so durable. A Polish tax official is not a tyrant. He is a cog in a machine that behaves, as all machines of power do, according to its own internal logic: expanding where it can, interpreting ambiguity in its own favor, treating the citizen less as a partner than as a suspect. The problem of bureaucratic lawlessness is not, at its root, a problem of bad people. It is a problem of bad incentives.

 

Recognition and publications

Kancelaria Prawna Skarbiec holds top positions in the tax law firm rankings published by Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, Poland’s leading legal daily. Our lawyers are regularly cited as experts in Rzeczpospolita, Forbes Poland, and industry media. Our client rating on Facebook — a platform where reviews come from verified users — stands at 5.0 out of 5.0.

We maintain one of the most extensive legal blogs in Poland — over one hundred articles per year, in Polish and English, covering tax law, crypto-asset regulation, asset protection, cybersecurity, and international private law. Our analyses range from CJEU rulings on intra-community supply VAT exemptions, through the anatomy of the Terra/Luna cryptocurrency collapse, to the geopolitics of frozen Russian assets and emerging AI case law. We write about law the way we understand it — as a tool that shapes the world, not merely regulates it.

Selected areas of publication: tax law Polish and international · fiscal audits · crypto-assets and MiCA/CASP/DAC8 regulation · family foundations and asset protection · cybersecurity and AI law · international law and legal geopolitics.

 

Kancelaria Skarbiec – Our Selected Articles

Anthropic vs. Pentagon Lawsuit

Deepfakes – Your Face Is Not Yours Anymore

Artificial Intelligence: Consciousness, Legal Personhood, and Free Will

The „Nanny” from Beijing. Who Else Is Watching the Baby Monitor Feed?

The Constitutional Price of Tariff Diplomacy

Russian Disinformation and Content Creator Liability

DocuSign Electonic Signature

Meta on Trial: How New Mexico’s Child-Safety Case Could Change Social Media Forever

When Fraud Prevention Becomes the Fraud

Hashing, Pseudonymization, and the Evolving Boundaries of Personal Data Protection

The Algorithm Knew: Inside the Uber Sexual Assault Trial

Non-Disclosure Agreements and Confidentiality Clauses

Does Silence Constitute Acceptance of a Contractual Offer?

Taxation of Genesis Token Allocations

When Apple Notes Become a National Security Threat

The Myth of the Disposable Agent

Drake, an Offshore Casino, and the Spotify Bots

[2026-01-28] Trump Sues JPMorgan Chase for Five Billion Dollars. A Landmark Case of Political “Debanking”

[2026.01.27] Can a Corporation Be Stolen? Landmark Disputes in Corporate Control Litigation

[2026.01.27] Illegible but Valid? On the Form of Signature in Polish and International Law

[2026.01.25] Fruit of the Poisonous Tree – How the FBI manufactured a drug lord

[2026.01.25] The Admissibility of Illegally Obtained Evidence

[2026.01.25] When the Taxman Listens In. The curious journey of wiretap evidence from criminal investigations to tax disputes—and the courts that decide where to draw the line

[2026.01.24] The Snowboarder. On the trail of Ryan Wedding. On the trail of Ryan Wedding, the Olympic athlete who became one of the F.B.I.’s most wanted fugitives.

[2026.01.23] Illegal Online Casinos: How to Identify Unlicensed Gambling Sites and Recover Your Money

[2026.01.22] Musk v. Altman – The Hundred-Billion-Dollar Diary

[2026.01.21] Secondary Ticket Market 2026: Legality, VAT & Regulations. The Billion-Dollar Aftermarket That Isn’t Supposed to Exist

[2026.01.18] Recurring Non-Monetary Contributions by Shareholders as a Vehicle for Social Security Avoidance

[2026.01.17] Frozen Russian Assets as a Vulture Fund Target: Tsarist Bonds, $225 Billion, and the New Lawfare Against Russia. Noble Capital sues Russia for $225.8B over 1916 Imperial bonds, targeting frozen Russian assets. Complete analysis: vulture funds, sovereign immunity, lawfare, odious debt doctrine, and sovereign debt litigation

[2026.01.14] The Polish Family Foundation as a Potential Instrument of Creditor Fraud

[2026.01.13] Frozen USDT: When Tether Actually Blocks Your Crypto Wallet — and When It’s a Scam

[2026.01.08] Unfair Contract Terms: The Court’s Duty to Review Ex Officio | EU Consumer Law Analysis

[2026.01.06] Three Potential Defense Strategies for Nicolás Maduro

[2026.01.04] The Cartel of the Suns Faces American Justice: A Legal Analysis of United States v. Nicolás Maduro

[2026.01.03] Gold Returns to the World of Finance: Eternal Money Against the Paper Illusion

[2026.01.02] Epitaph for Swiss Banking Secrecy

[2026.01.01] Malta’s Blockchain Island: Between Marketing Promises and Reality

[2025.12.30] Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content. A Meditation on the EU’s Latest Regulatory Masterpiece

[2025.12.28] The Migrating Workplace: Choice of Law in International Employment After Locatrans C-485/24

[2025.12.27] CARF/DAC8 Compliance – The End of Crypto-Asset Opacity. Poland’s Implementation of DAC8 and the Global Architecture of Tax Transparency

[2025.12.26] Is Poland Retreating from the Fight Against Money Laundering? The Extension of Evidentiary Validity for Paper Share Certificates and Its Implications for International AML Compliance

[2025.12.25] Invoice Fraud – The Paper Trail to Prison

[2025.12.24] The Inheritance Trap – Family Conflict and Business Succession 

[2025.12.23] Lost in the Company. The Perils of Going Into Business with Your Spouse

[2025.12.22] Documenting Intra-Community Supplies: A Key CJEU Ruling on Zero-Rate VAT

[2025.12.22] The IE-599 Message (Now CC599C) as Official Documentation

[2025.12.21] Unreliable Books – The Lies That Ledgers Tell

[2025.12.18] How Forensic Accounting Dismantled a Phantom Empire

[2025.12.17] ZUS Optimization via Tokens in Poland: Innovation or Legal Risk?

[2025.12.12] The Moon King’s Fall – How Do Kwon Built and Destroyed a $40 Billion Crypto Empire

[2025.12.08] How Hidden Phrases in Legal Documents Can Manipulate AI Review

[2025.12.07] The Conditional Guarantee: Poland and the Transactional Turn in American Strategy

[2025.12.06] LONDONGRAD: How London Became the Oligarchs’ Favorite Address—and Why Evicting Them Has Proved So Complicated

[2025.12.03] Autopen – The Machine That Signs for the President

[2025.12.02] How Poland Became a Haven for Crypto Crime

[2025.12.01] The Taxation of Erotic Performance

[2025.11.30] The Boomerang: How Instruments of Repression Turn on Their Makers

[2025.11.29] The Tax Collector’s Convenience: How Poland Punishes the Innocent in the Name of Fighting Fraud

[2025.11.29] Between Scylla and Charybdis: Poland’s Presidential Veto and the Coming Tax Storm

[2025.11.28] The Sheep and the Shepherds: Inside BitClub’s $722 Million Mining Mirage

[2025.11.28] The Man Who Lost Three Hundred Million Pounds Because His Bank Got Suspicious

[2025.11.26] VAT Treatment of External Financing in Investment Agreements

[2025.11.26] Sanctions evasion and offshore trusts. A case study from the High Court ruling in EuroChem

[2025.11.25] Roger Ver – Koniec Bitcoin Mesjasza

[2025.11.22] Ostatnia strona: Upadek Backpage i próba zadośćuczynienia ofiarom

[2025.11.22] The family foundation and the third-generation curse

[2025.11.21] How to Get Your Money Back from an Online Casino: Three Landmark E.U. Cases Against Maltese Operators

[2025.11.17] The House Always Wins: How Caribbean Islands Became the World’s Casino Regulators

[2025.11.14] Decentralized Autonomous Organizations as a Novel Legal Entity: Reconciling Technological Innovation with Classical Legal Constructs

[2025.11.12] Smart Contracts Were Going to Replace Lawyers

[2025.11.11] Legal Solutions Safeguarding the Interests of Cryptocurrency Beneficiaries

[2025.11.11] Cryptocurrency Inheritance: Technical & Legal Access Guide

[2025.11.07] The Butcher’s Ledger. Inside the industrial machinery of pig butchering romance fraud – where lives were stolen, billions were made, and nothing was left to chance

[2025.11.06] When #LuxuryLife Becomes Evidence: How Social Media Posts Lead Straight to Tax Court

[2025.11.04] Big Brother Knows What You Prompt

[2025.11.03] The Bitter Aftertaste: How Italy Presented Campari with a €1.3-Billion Bar Tab

[2025.10.31] The Naked Taxpayer: When the Tax Man Comes to OnlyFans

[2025-10-30] Domain Blocking: The Polish Financial Supervisory Authority’s New Weapon Against Illicit Cryptocurrency Exchanges

[2025.10.29] Knowledge of Tax Non-Payment Is Insufficient: A Watershed Opinion from the CJEU Advocate General on VAT Liability

[2025.10.28] Yukos vs. the Kremlin. How Offshore Structures Saved Billions from State Plunder

[2025.10.27] When Tax Planning Goes Spectacularly Wrong

[2025.10.27] Bored Apes and Broken Tests: How Courts Let NFT Promoters Off Easy

[2025.10.23] AI in Court: The Global Copyright Landscape in the Age of Algorithms

[2025.10.22] How Billionaires Avoid Paying Taxes?

[2025.10.20] The CJEU Xyrality Judgment: A Landmark Decision for Mobile Application Developers

[2025.10.20] The Vanuatu Passport Trap: When a Golden Ticket Becomes a Liability

[2025.10.14] The Balance Between Consumer Rights of Withdrawal and Merchant Rights to Compensation Under European Law

[2025.10.07] Points, Vouchers, or Discounts? The CJEU’s Taxonomical Approach to Loyalty Programs Under VAT Law

[2025.10.09] Comprehensive Reform of Shareholder Registers: Analysis of the Proposed Commercial Companies Code Amendment

[2025.10.07] The Boundaries of Decentralization: Examining DeFi’s Regulatory Status Under MiCA and Its Implications for Cryptoasset Licensing Requirements

[2025.10.01] VAT Principles for Gaming “Gold” in Light of Case C-472/24: A Critical Analysis of Virtual Currency Taxation

[2025.09.29] All or Nothing: Negotiation Strategies Employed by Private Equity Funds

[2025.09.26] Zachowek i compulsory share w systemach prawnych świata – analiza porównawcza w kontekście międzynarodowego planowania spadkowego

[2025.09.24] The Digital Pirate King’s Last Stand: Kim Dotcom’s 13-Year Odyssey Through Legal Purgatory Finally Nears Its End

[2025.09.23] Legislative Ambush of Family Foundations. Critical Analysis of the Draft Amendment to the CIT Act of 29 August 2025

[2025.09.22] Global Legal Frameworks for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations

[2025.09.22] The Stand-Still Principle in Civil Transaction Taxes: An Analysis of the Gdańsk Regional Administrative Court Decision of September 2, 2025

[2025.09.05] CoinPlex and the Psychology of Click-Button Scams

[2025.08.26] Kiedy państwo dzwoni po Twoje pieniądze. Anatomia oszustwa doskonałego

[2025.08.26] Code Above Country? How North Korean Hackers Won the Tornado Cash Ruling and Why Congress Must Rewrite the Playbook

[2025.08.26] The Tokenization Mirage: When Digital Promises Meet Legal Reality

[2025.08.14] The Disposition of Assets Upon Failure to Register a Family Foundation: A Critical Analysis of Polish Legislative Deficiencies

[2025.07.30] Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (3:24-cv-05417) / When AI Meets Copyright: Dissecting Judge Alsup’s Landmark Anthropic Decision 

[2025.08.04] Czy spółki w Delaware pozwalają skutecznie ukryć majątek i tożsamość właściciela

[2025.08.05] Kumbaya AI: Why Singing Digital Campfire Songs with China Won’t Work (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the AI Arms Race)

[2025.08.04] Benford’s Law – The Hidden Pattern That Exposes Financial Fraud

[2025.07.25] One Small Click for Man: How Starlink’s Terms of Service Accidentally Taught Me About Space Law

[2025.07.22] Confessions of a Defense Attorney: When Your Dream Client Becomes Your Worst Nightmare

[2025.07.22] The Myth of the Hungry Judge: A Cautionary Tale in Legal Psychology

[2025.07.22] The Death and Data: Lucy Letby And the Numbers That Convicted Her

[2025.07.18] The Nominee Director Fiction: How Offshore Providers Corrupted Corporate Governance

SELECTED LINKEDIN POSTS

How Russia’s Pravda Network Poisons AI Models Through Source Contamination

North Korean State-Backed Hackers Execute $10M+ LinkedIn Scam Campaign

Federal authorities have arrested two Chinese nationals on charges of smuggling a dangerous biological pathogen into the United States

A Stanford student’s terrifying encounter has blown the lid off what intelligence officials have been sounding the alarm about for years

🔍 OPERATION EAST 🇧🇷 How Brazil Dismantled Putin’s Spy Factory 🇷🇺

Department of Justice audit just revealed the FBI is facing what officials call an “EXISTENTIAL THREAT” from something called Ubiquitous Technical Surveillance (UTS) – and the details are absolutely wild.

Sex, Lies, and LinkedIn. The Times delivers a rather spectacular exposé on what happens when Cold War tradecraft meets Tinder aesthetics and venture capital cocktail parties.

Leaked FSB document reveals deep structural tensions in Russia-China partnership

REVEALED 🚢: The Hidden Military Dimension of China’s Shipping Empire

Chinese Spy Ring Dismantled in Turkey Using Sophisticated “Ghost Base Stations”

Third Chinese National Arrested for Biological Material Smuggling at University of Michigan

FBI Uncovers Elaborate Chinese Intelligence Operation on U.S. Soil

Beyond the Headlines: Inside the Russian Spy Network That Operated from UK Soil

U.S. Treasury Exposes Sophisticated Iranian Shadow Banking Network Worth Billions

Chinese hackers pulled off an audacious cyber espionage operation during critical U.S.-China trade negotiations

A newly unsealed FBI affidavit describes how China’s Ministry of State Security used two operatives to systematically target US Navy installations and personnel over four years.

A partially declassified UK Parliamentary intelligence report exposes the Islamic Republic of Iran’s sprawling global assassination apparatus that operates across continents with shocking impunity.

The Rope Sellers Never Learn. Lenin said capitalists would sell us the rope to hang them with. He was right, but even he couldn’t predict they’d turn it into a subscription service with free shipping. $1 billion in advanced Nvidia chips just waltzed into China in three months.

“FOX IN THE HENHOUSE”: How China Weaponized America’s Open Research System