White House Tax Revamp Panel to Hold First Public Meeting Wednesday
* SEPTEMBER 30, 2009, 12:05 A.M. ET
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By JOHN D. MCKINNON
WASHINGTON — A White House tax-reform panel will hold the first of a series of public meetings Wednesday on simplifying and overhauling the tax code, according to a draft announcement.
The meeting marks a small but significant step forward in what is likely to be a protracted debate over modernizing the tax code.
With the federal budget deficit ballooning, the Obama administration and congressional leaders could look to tax-code changes to generate more revenues for the government.
Most observers expect the overhaul to proceed slowly, in part because of the high economic and political stakes. Congress appears likely to begin considering the corporate tax code next year, before turning to individual taxes sometime after that.
The meeting—scheduled to start at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday—will be streamed live on the White House Web site.
It's the first public window into the panel's deliberations, whose activities have been much speculated about by tax experts.
The panel's first meeting is expected to focus on simplifying the Byzantine tax code, with its multiple definitions of a child, for example, overlapping breaks and other complexities. The panel is also considering ways to overhaul the corporate tax system as well as to improve collections of the hundreds of billions in federal taxes that are owed but not paid each year.
The panel is set to produce a report by early December. The panel's chief economist, Austan Goolsbee, will say in a blog post Wednesday that the panel will not make formal recommendations in the report, according to a draft announcement.
Instead, it will "present a view of the pros and cons of different options." The report – to be discussed by the full board – also "will not represent the view of the administration," Mr. Goolsbee will say, noting that the panel includes a wide range of viewpoints from outside the administration.
President Barack Obama created the panel in March to consider a wide range of options for overhauling the tax code. It is a subgroup of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board and includes former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker as well as Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, former Clinton administration adviser Laura Tyson, TIAA-CREF chief executive Roger Ferguson and former SEC chairman Bill Donaldson.
Write to John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com |
