"This actually … grew out of the Emerging Issues Forum held at NC State earlier this year," says Dr. Walden, an economist with the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service.

"And the idea is not to have a commission that says we need to increase taxes or decrease taxes. Instead, this is much more fundamental. This is, I think, a commission that really is going to take a hard look at the entire tax structure of the state," he says.

"What do we tax? At what rates do we tax? What about taxes that we reserve for the state versus we reserve for the local governments? Also intergovernmental relationships: Should there be some things that only the state does, the locals do and how does that affect the tax situation?

"The last time we really had a big overhaul of the state’s tax structure was in the 1930s," he concludes, "and I think the issue is whether we need a new structure for a new century."