Bush Appoints Panel to Overhaul Tax Code

INDIANAPOLIS -- President Bush named a pair of former senators, Florida Republican Connie Mack and Louisiana Democrat John Breaux, to head his newly created panel on overhauling the U.S. tax code, CBS Market Watch reported Tuesday.

Mack will be chair and Breaux will be co-chair of the nine-member panel, tasked with coming up with proposals for simplifying the tax code, which would then be implemented by the Treasury Department. Mack told reporters at the White House that the panel is expected hold public hearings across the country in the coming months and report back to the Treasury Department by the end of July.

In addition to Mack and Breaux, Bush tapped former Representative Bill Frenzel, now of the Brookings Institution; USC law professor Elizabeth Garrett; Stanford Business School professor Ed Lazear; former head of the Federal Trade Commission Timothy Muris; Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor James Poterba; former Internal Revenue Service chief Charles Rossotti; and Liz Ann Saunders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, CBS reported.

-- NYSSCPA.org News Staff

Posted on 1/11/05