The White House Wednesday announced a new task force headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker to reform the Byzantine US tax code in the hope of recouping billions in lost revenue.
White House budget chief Peter Orszag said Volcker and four other top economists will report their recommendations back to President Barack Obama by December 4, and their review will cover three main areas.
"One is tax simplification, the second is closing tax loopholes and reducing tax evasion, and the third is reducing corporate welfare," the director of the Office of Management and Budget told reporters.
Orszag said the Volcker panel would also examine offshore tax havens, a major agenda item for Obama and other Group of 20 leaders at a summit convening in London next week to address the global economic crisis.
"One of the key things that the Volcker board will be examining is ways of unifying, streamlining, making more consistent the various credits that are out there," he said, citing the complex array of tax breaks now on offer.
Orszag pointed to a 2005 estimate by the Internal Revenue Service that the US tax gap -- the difference between what companies and individuals owe and what they actually pay -- exceeds 300 billion dollars a year.
"Three hundred billion dollars a year or more is a lot of money, and we are interested in being as aggressive as possible to reduce that number."
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