Members of a national tax force on tax reform, chaired by UALR Professor Judyth Swingen for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) submitted their recommendations to President Obama’s tax reform panel last week.

Dr. Swingen, professor of accounting at UALR’s College of Business, is a member of the AICPA Tax Legislation and Policy Committees.

“I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with some very experienced tax professionals on this project,” said Swingen. “My task force included the former national taxpayer advocate and the former head of the AICPA’s Tax Division.”

The five-member task force’s report, “Tax Reform Alternatives for the 21^st Century,” outlines efforts to improve the current system without changing its fundamental character. The report suggested wide-ranging simplification efforts, increasing fairness, reducing revenue lost from tax evasion — the tax gap, and broadening the tax base.

The proposal addresses economic growth by improving economic efficiency through greater neutrality, creating incentives for capital formation, accelerating depreciation, eliminating double taxation of corporate profits, simplifying and increasing tax-preferred savings options, and reforming counterproductive characteristics of the tax system as applied to domestic corporations and international businesses.

The report describes the nature of the issues leading to a tax reform debate, suggests a balanced approach for analyzing tax reform proposals, and summarizes key issues to be addressed whether taxing income or consumption or both.

In March, Obama called for the formation of a task force to review the current income tax system and suggest ways to simplify it and improve compliance and to reform the corporate tax.

With the continued focus on the need and desire to improve the current tax system by the administration and congressional leaders, the AICPA produced the report to serve as a resource to those engaged in the current tax reform debate. The committee’s objectives were to provide policymakers with a clear understanding of the issues and alternatives involved in federal tax reform and to foster informed discussion by providing unbiased information and analysis.

“We are very pleased with Judyth’s efforts in leading this task force in this difficult but crucial work,” said Dr. Robert R. Oliva, chair of the Department of Accounting in UALR’s College of Business.

AICPA is the national professional association of certified public accountants and has a long history of assisting lawmakers with tax policy matters and advocating sound tax policy. The AICPA issued similar tax reform studies in 1995 and 2005. The full text of all of the institute’s tax reform documents is available at aicpa.org/taxreform.