Transfer Pricing and Tax Law BEPS Actions 8, 9, 10 and the Italian System: an Assessment Marco Greggi , University of Ferrara 1 Abstract The Italian experience in Transfer pricing audits and assessments dates back to the early eighties, and thus is almost four decades old. In this timespan tax offices in the peninsula have developed a more and more precise and aggressive application of this technique, relying on the law, internal circular letters and instructions. As the international scenario developed, the Ministry of Finance in 2018 issued a landmark Regulation codifying most of these best practices, thus creating a more transparent environment for taxpayers and investors in the country. Yet the OECD didn’t remain standstill as the BEPS tsunami addressed Transfer pricing too, with no less that three distinctive Actions. The goal of the OECD was clearly set, and consists in the necessity to align Transfer pricing with the actual value creation. This brief contribute argues that while the use of concepts such as “Value creation” is positive and welcome under a policy perspective, yet it is difficult, in the practice, to transform it into a practical rule: it’s even harder in Italy. If this alignment is to be intended as a sort of “catch all” clause (a sort of ‘substance over form’ declination of Transfer pricing, it is evident that the price paid in terms of loss of legal certainty would by far overtake the benefit. The point is that Value can be interpreted in a number of ways and taxpayers might be confused or find it impossible to abide by that. Italy tried and overtake this loophole (abide by a principle hard to be defined) codifying OECD recommendations, and empowering the tax administration to go further on. This will insure compliance with the international standard, alas the cost in term of legal certainty will be high for the country and impossible to be calculated at this stage. The author is of the opinion that major emphasis should be given to the tax judiciary of the country, as legal certainty would benefit from a clear and well sound stare decisis doctrine in tax law. Coherence of the judicial decision making process in this respect would be more useful than a storm of recommendations and guidelines that appears unstoppable and relentless. 1. Introduction: Transfer pricing in the OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action Plan. The “Base Erosion and Profit Shifting” Plan (BEPS, from now on) launched by the OECD in 2013 is a milestone in the development of International Tax law . Due to the number of the 2 1 Marco Greggi is Professor of Tax Law at the University of Ferrara, Italy. He can be contacted at marco.greggi@unife.it. This research has been developed in the framework of a project supported by the European Commission (2017-1-LI01-KA203-000088) and directed by Professor Tanja Kirn, University of Liechtenstein. Any error or omission is of the sole responsibility of the author. 2 OECD. (2013). Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting. (OECD, Ed.). Paris: OECD Publishing.