Tax experts across the political spectrum agree that the current rate structure is not rational and that potential gains from reform could be remarkable. Accordingly, tax reform is widely viewed as desirable. However, there is not a clear consensus on what reforms are most desirable or feasible. In "Toward Fundamental Tax Reform", eleven leading tax scholars, including a Nobel Prize winner, outline their ideas about tax reform. The original essays provide readers with concise but varying perspectives on the possibilities of tax reform. They also focus attention on key questions in the scholarly debate: Would a different tax code dramatically alter the functioning of the economy? How much damage does the current law do? Can relatively small changes to the tax code deliver most of the benefits of more dramatic reforms like the flat tax? Are political forces that oppose efficient tax systems simply too powerful to overcome? Will tax reform inevitably harm the poor? Can a tax reform, if enacted, be sustained?

Alan J. Auerbach, University of California - Berkeley and National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Mass.; David F. Bradford, Princeton University; William G. Gale, Brookings Institution; Michael J. Graetz, Yale University; Robert E. Hall, Stanford University; Kevin A. Hassett, AEI; R. Glenn Hubbard, Graduate School of Business at Columbia University, AEI, and 2001-3 chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers; Casey B. Mulligan, University of Chicago; Ronald A. Pearlman, Georgetown University Law Center; Edward C. Prescott, 2004 Nobel Prize winner in economic sciences, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University; Joel Slemrod, Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.