Bush Picks Panel To Report On Tax Reform By July 31

ByJohn S. McClenahen With the announced goal of making the federal tax code "simpler, fairer and more pro-growth," President Bush on Jan. 7 named nine people to advise Treasury Secretary John W. Snow on reform options. The panel, officially the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, is slated to make its recommendations by July 31 of this year. Former Republican senator from Florida Connie Mack III is to chair the panel; former Senator John Breaux, a Democrat from Louisiana, is to be the vice-chairman. Other panel members are Bill Frenzel, a former Republican member of the House; University of Southern California law professor Elizabeth Garrett; Stanford University Business School professor Edward P. Lazear; George Mason University Law School professor Timothy J. Muris, a former chair of the Federal Trade Commission; James M. Poterba, associate department head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Economics Department; former Internal Revenue Service commissioner Charles O. Rossotti; and Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, a brokerage firm.