Transfer Pricing Phisiognomy
/"All benchmarks are likely, or at least they
are so, theoretically speaking.
All benchmarks that are likely in theory are
theoretically applicable in practice.
However, not all benchmarks that are theoretically
applicable in practice are actually applicable to
all concrete cases.
What’s more: some benchmarks that are
theoretically applicable in practice may be
practically unlikely and may result as being
actually inapplicable (in some given concrete
cases).
It is up to the interpreter to be able to discern
between benchmarks that are likely from the
ones that are not, evaluate whether the ones
that are likely are possible, assess whether the
ones that are possible are likely (in specific
concrete cases).
The debate between the Tax Authorities and
Taxpayers has the purpose of establishing a level
of evident likelihood or a just as evident
unlikelihood of the benchmark.
Balance and critical judgment support the ability
to discern between what is an acceptable
likelihood from an unacceptable unlikelihood.
The crux of the problem lies precisely in such
antithetical interests that exist between the Tax
Authorities and Taxpayers to the point that the
unlikely becomes possible and the impossible
becomes likely.
Be it likely or unlikely as it may.
And to raise – with an ever-increasing likelihood –
that which is unlikely to (the heights of) that
which is possible."
(Piergiorgio Valente)
In International Tax Avoidance (p. 1227)
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