The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has selected home-grown technology to launch a new electronic version of its Model Tax Convention (MTC) on income and capital.

Supplier for the eMTC is Eurofield Information Solutions (EIS).

The OECD has traditionally used a PDF format for most of its electronic publications but will be using eComPress technology which enables permanent compression of the publication.

OECD head of dissemination and marketing Toby Green said the length and content of the MTC made PDF a poor solution.

MTC is the industry benchmark for interpreting tax conventions between countries and the eMTC will be the most up-to-date version available globally due to its ability to deliver updates to users as they are released.

eMTC includes the full text of the Tax Convention from January 28, 2003 along with all OECD reports and recommendations during this period along with links to the 1963 and 1977 conventions ensuring all information resides in a single place.

Green said it is OECD"s first electronic product engineered specifically for international tax professionals.

"We know that this is a mobile community who need to access reference material from their laptops and that they need to be confident that they have the latest version," he said.

"eMTC is a 3D product with commentary and history attached to each paragraph of the Convention. We needed a sophisticated solution that would enable users to navigate between the different types of content very quickly; users can now link from an article to its commentary instantly.

"The advanced annotation facility in eComPress allows tax professionals using eMTC to attach personal notes to specific areas of text, without jeopardizing the integrity of the actual publication. "

Green said personal notes remain undisturbed as future updates are released because new information will flow into existing files without disrupting a user"s notes.

"From this point of view the user can really personalize the content and make it much more valuable," he added.

Updates to the Convention are borne out of international negotiation between the 30 member countries of the OECD and are usually up to two years apart.

Green believes there is always a concern with conventions that the latest edition is the one being consulted.

"With the new eMTC we can pass updates on to our users via e-mail alerts. They will be very confident they are working with the most up-to-date material.

"Another very useful feature is the ability to copy and paste excerpts from the Convention into a working document. A footnote is automatically created detailing the excerpt"s origin, so users don"t have to remember how to cite it. "

The OECD"s e-library, which is known as SourceOECD, is home to e-books, e-periodicals and interactive statistical databases.

EIS managing director Alfred Papallo said eComPress is ideal for a worldwide membership base.