Spurred by the belief that tax simplification should be a high priority for this Congress, the American Bar Association Section of Taxation recently joined the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Tax Division and the Tax Executives Institute in sponsoring a one-day Invitational Conference on Tax Simplification at the Cannon House Office Building in Washington D.C.

Leading tax policy experts from the Internal Revenue Service, Department of Treasury, Congress, academia, and the private sector debated a variety of recommendations for simplifying the tax code that were part of the Joint Committee on Taxation's Study of the Overall State of the Federal Tax System and Recommendations for Simplification, April 2001, including earned income credit, repealing corporate alternative minimum tax, eliminating phase-outs, and simplifying the taxation of capital gains. Eugene Steuerle, Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute, delivered the opening keynote address and Representative Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, provided conference attendees with an inside view of the future of tax simplification policy during a luncheon speech.

Check this page soon for links to the papers presented at the conference.

In January 2002, Tax Analysts published an unofficial transcript of the Joint Conference. With their permission, we provide an online copy of this transcript. (Please note: A print-out of the transcript, even in our "printer-friendly" format, will fill more than 100 pages.)