Tax reform debates in the United States have for some time been dominated by the question of whether the existing corporate and individual income tax system should be replaced with some form of a national consumption tax. This book contains essays by a group of internationally recognized tax experts who describe the current state of the art in economic thinking on the issue of whether fundamental tax reform is preferable to continued incremental reform of the existing income tax. The collection covers a wide range of tax policy issues related to consumption tax reforms, including their economic effects, distributional consequences, effects on administrative and compliance costs, transitional issues and the political aspects of fundamental tax reform, and international comparisons.