Washington -- The pending appointments for President Bush's bi-partisan tax reform commission, which were scheduled to be unveiled prior to the New Year, have been pushed back to early 2005.
Earlier this week, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the administration was in the final stages of establishing the group, which will be comprised of tax experts and economists who will study the current tax code and report its recommendations to Treasury Secretary John Snow.
The panel will examine how to simplify the tax code, which currently runs more than 1 million words, and determine whether any type of reform would include modifying the current system or replacing it with a new one. The consortium would also look at what current tax loopholes should be closed to help blunt the frequency of tax evasion and how the tax system can increase economic growth and job creation.
The president has labeled the current tax code as a "complicated mess filled with special interest loopholes." President Bush first revealed plans for the bipartisan panel in early September during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in New York.
Although tax reform was high on the president's agenda for the second term, recent reports stated that tax reform has been pushed back by as long as a year by an immediate focus on creating private Social Security accounts.
The White House did not disclose when the reform panel would be unveiled.
