President Bush's Advisory Panel on Tax Reform has hit the road over the past month and a half holding six public meetings in their efforts to reform the country's tax code. The panel, which will submit suggestions to Treasury Secretary John Snow by July 31, has heard testimony from a variety of experts. The panel is charged with reforming the federal tax code to make it simpler, fairer, and more conducive to economic growth and job creation. The panel began its public hearings with two meetings in Washington, DC, and has since held forums in Tampa, FL, Chicago, New Orleans, and San Francisco. (See a full list of witnesses and all public testimonials and statements.) The panel has heard from a wide variety of sources including noted academics Leonard Burman and Bill Gale of the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, representatives of the small business community, various other tax experts, and citizens. The first two meetings in Washington, DC, focused on the history of the federal income tax system, consumption taxes, the complexity of our current tax system, and the alternative minimum tax (AMT). The AMT was designed to ensure wealthy Americans could not take advantage of tax incentives to avoid paying taxes. Because the tax was not indexed for inflation, it is increasingly forcing middle-income Americans to pay extra taxes -- an unintended consequence. Both Snow and Greenspan made statements at the meetings in Washington. Snow briefly discussed the complexity of the code and the resulting loopholes in the system, while Greenspan spoke of lessons that can be learned from past reform efforts and the importance of having certainty in the tax code. After the initial meeting in Washington, the tax panel began a series of meetings around the country designed to give credence to the panel through publicity in the states as well as to solicit testimony from sources around the country. The four meetings that have taken place to date have rotated through a variety of topics including how the tax system affects businesses and entrepreneurs, decisions by taxpayers and investment alternatives, public perception of fairness in the code and its impact on families, and how the tax code spurs economic growth and international competitiveness. The president established the panel by executive order on Jan. 7 to help accomplish an overhaul of the tax code, one of his top second-term priorities. The panel is co-chaired by former Sens. Connie Mack (R-FL) and John Breaux (D-LA). Other members include former Rep. Bill Frenzel (R-MN); Charles Rossotti, former Internal Revenue Service commissioner; Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist for Charles Schwab & Co.; Elizabeth Garrett, Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics and Political Science at the University of Southern California; Edward Lazear, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution; Timothy Muris, former Federal Trade Commission chairman; and James Poterba, economics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. To date the panel has not extended the opportunity to the general public to testify (although all the meetings are open to the public), but anyone may submit written comments. The Center for American Progress, a progressive think-tank in Washington, DC, submitted their comprehensive tax reform plan to the panel. The Center's tax plan would tax all income sources evenly, reduce dependence on payroll taxes, and enhance the take-home pay of lower-income taxpayers. To simplify the tax code, the plan reduces the number of income tax brackets from six to three, taxing the three at 15, 25, and 39.6 percent. To increase economic opportunity, the plan restores fiscal discipline by reducing the large budget deficit by addressing the fiscal gap and offers Americans new opportunities to save and create wealth for their retirement years. Notably the revenue-neutral plan reduces taxes for 70 percent of Americans and provides an average tax cut of approximately $600 to those making less than $200,000 annually (read the Center's comments).