The tax subcommittee of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board has decided to postpone its report outlining tax reform plans for the White House after being inundated with suggestions.

Paul Volcker

“The tax subcommittee of the PERAB was scheduled to release its report on December 4th. But we have received more than 500 submissions of serious tax reform ideas from the public, both in person and on our website, and we had to cut them off to meet the original deadline,” said a statement by PERAB chairman Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, posted on the White House blog. “I want us to review as many suggestions as possible and to have sufficient time to fully consider the hundreds of suggestions that have come in already. I have asked the Administration to extend our deadline and to reopen the website for submissions so that we can hear the widest possible range of ideas.”

Volcker added that the panel still has the same mandate: to discuss the pros and cons of a spectrum of reform ideas relating to tax simplification, enforcement of existing tax laws and reform of the corporate tax system without considering policies that would raise taxes on families making less than $250,000.

The PERAB is not tasked with providing its own policy recommendations for the Obama administration, Volcker added, and the final report will be "an almanac of options from a broad range of viewpoints."

The subcommittee will be reopening the Web submission form and extending the deadline for any suggestions in keeping with its mandate. Suggestions may also be submitted via e-mail to perab@do.treas.gov. The group will be scheduling more public meetings over the coming weeks. “We expect to report back to the Administration after the holidays,” said Volcker.