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Website
of the Month: International Tax Institute
By
Susan B. Anders
JANUARY 2008 - The
International Tax Institute’s website, www.itinet.org, provides
a variety of unique resources for its subscribers, as well as
the general public. The organization focuses on performing research,
offering continuing education, and publishing books, journals,
and newsletters on international tax, tax treaties, and transfer
pricing. ITI also distributes materials produced by the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World
Trade Organization (WTO), some of which are available on ITI’s
website.
The website
offers useful resources for CPAs. Some of the commercial materials
offer a free trial or online demonstration. This review will focus
on resources that are available without charge.
Located at
the top of the home and main pages is a navigational menu bar
with links to “home,” “about us,” “contributors,”
and “contact us.” The index on the left-hand side
of the home and main pages lists the site’s main features
and serves as the primary navigational tool. The right-hand side
of the homepage is dedicated to text boxes highlighting some of
ITI’s free and commercial resources.
The main
left-hand index headings are “treaty resource center,”
“transfer pricing resource center,” “tax forms
resource center,” “OECD publishing resource center,”
“education services,” “tax bookstore,”
“links and other services,” and “subscribe.”
The right-side promotions cover OECD tax publications, transfer
pricing news roundup, and translated tax forms. Users can also
request a live demonstration of ITI’s products and services,
a free tutorial on tax treaties, and free trials of the Tax Treaty
Analyst and Transfer Pricing Suite.
Free
Resources
The website
offers three excellent resources without charge: the Transfer
Pricing News Roundup Archives (TPNR), an alphabetical listing
of links to government tax authorities, and links to external
resources for U.S., Canadian, U.K., Australian, and Latin American
tax treaties. An introductory tax treaty tutorial is available
for free.
The TPNR
is a free service that tracks news articles and government announcements
for registered users, and sends e-mail updates every two weeks.
The archive of past issues, which goes back to November 2006,
is available to the public. News sources covered include business
and economics journals and websites from all over the world.
Recent issues
of the TPNR have included an article from Financial Week regarding
corporate taxation as a major issue in the U.S. presidential race,
and an Ottawa Citizen report discussing lowering Canadian
corporate taxes to become more competitive globally. A WebCPA
piece described the major impact that transfer pricing has on
FIN 48 compliance.
The links
for government tax authorities can be found under the left-side
index category of “links and other services,” as well
as the “tax forms resource center.” More than 100
countries are listed with connections directly to the tax authorities
and specifically to international tax features, where available.
A free online
tutorial covers the development of bilateral tax treaties. Each
lesson includes a quiz and a navigation button that connects to
the tutorial index, so users can easily pick topics or review
prior material. The tutorial also offers links to website and
PDF files for the OECD Model Convention, the United Nations Model
Double Taxation Convention, and the conventions between the United
States and Canada and Mexico.
Free
Trials of Subscription Services
A live demonstration
is available on an appointment basis for ITI’s transfer
pricing and tax treaty resources, its library of OECD tax publications,
as well as for access to databases. Users can request two-day
free trials of ITI’s Tax Treaty Analyst and Transfer Pricing
Suite. The Tax Treaty Analyst main page includes descriptions
of the available materials, sample screen shots of the Japan-U.S.
treaty page, and the Germany Article 13 (capital gains) page.
Susan
B. Anders, PhD, CPA, is a professor of accounting at St.
Bonaventure University, St. Bonaventure, N.Y.
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