ATLANTA -- A bill introduced this week with the support of Senate and House leaders sets the framework for a systematic study of Georgia's tax system this summer and fall by a blue-ribbon committee and creates an extraordinary mechanism for submitting any recommendations it may produce to next year's Legislature.

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Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker David Ralston have a morning news conference planned at the Capitol to outline their thinking for the proposal.

House Bill 1405 makes no mention of the state's current budget problems but potentially provides a path lawmakers can travel if they wish to make fundamental, long-term changes and gives them a fall-guy to blame (a blue-ribbon commission) if the political fallout is too hot.

The bill, first of all, creates an entity to be known as the 2010 Special Council on Tax Reform and Fairness for Georgians. Its job is to conduct a thorough study of the current revenue structure and to report its findings to the speaker of the House and the lieutenant governor no later than Jan. 10, 2011.

The bill even names who is on the committee: Economists Jeff Humphreys, Roger Tutterow and Christine Ries; lameduck Gov. Sonny Perdue; former Gov. Zell Miller; the 2010 president of the Georgia Chamber and the 2010 state director for the National Federal of Independent Business, and two members appointed by the lieutenant governor and two by the speaker.

Next, the bill creates an entity called the Special Joint Committee on Georgia Revenue Structure, composed of the president pro tem of the Senate and the speaker pro tem of the House; the majority leaders of both chambers; the minority leaders of both chambers; the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee; two House members appointed by the speaker, including one from the minority party; two members appointed by the lieutenant governor, including one from the minority party.

Here's where things really get interesting:

The proposed new joint committee will cause to be introduced in the 2011 session one or more bills carrying out the recommendations of the blue-ribbon panel "without significant changes."

That legislation, after being read, will be referred back to the joint committee for action. If the joint committee recommends a "do pass" or a "do pass by committee substitute," the proposed legislation goes first to the House, where it will bypass the Rules Committee and is eligible to be called for consideration at any time fixed by the Speaker. But the legislation only can receive an "up or down" vote. It cannot be amended.

The same process is followed in the Senate.

It is highly unusual to make fundamental changes in the way legislation is presented to and considered by the General Assembly, but there is some precedent. In 1972, then-Gov. Jimmy Carter's governmental reorganization bill was presented to the Legislature in a reverse-veto sort of affair - any portion of the bill that the Legislature didn't object to - or "veto" - automatically took effect.

The No. 1 sponsor of the bill is Rep. Larry O'Neal, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. He is followed, in order, by Ralston, Majority Leader Jerry Keen, Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones and others.

O'Neal told The Macon Telegraph's Travis Fain that the legislation potentially sets the stage for "a total overhaul," explaining further: "The concept is that our revenue system has not kept up with our growth."

The commission could look at sales taxes and the 100-plus sales-tax exemptions that exist in the current tax code. It also could look at reducing income and corporate taxes, as well as the state's capital gains tax.

But O'Neal told Fain that altering the local property tax system, as former Speaker Glenn Richardson sought to do with his unsuccessful GREAT plan, is a nonstarter. This review wouldn't seek to do away with property taxes or "impact local taxes at all," O'Neal said.