The panel was formed to update Utah's creaky old tax structure with a 21st century mix of revenue sources to both keep the wheels of government greased and make taxes fair and competitive. But given the task force's reluctance to offend anyone who benefits from The Way We've Always Done It, the prospects for anything worthy of being called reform seem dim.

The process began with various ideas, primarily a call for a flat income tax and a contradictory push for a tax structure that would be more progressive than the existing code, which applies its highest income tax rate to nearly two-thirds of all taxpayers.

The proposal from Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s tax experts went a long way toward squaring that circle. It would have only one rate applied to all taxable income, though it would offer household and per-person deductions that phase out as income increases.

Under pressure from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others, Huntsman restored a tax credit for charitable donations. But, in order to remain revenue-neutral, his tax rate would have to be 5 percent, not the 4 percent Huntsman preferred.

The task force forwarded Huntsman's plan on to the Legislature's Interim Revenue and Taxation Committee. But also in that envelope will be three rival plans.

One is like the governor's except it restores the deduction for mortgage interest and removes his proposed five-dependent cap on the number of exemptions a family can take. The others are a 4 percent flat tax, made a bit less regressive and a bit less flat with a tax credit for sales tax paid, and a plan to keep the current tax structure as is, except to lower the current top rate of 7 percent.

All of this, of course, is so much jabber without clear-eyed analysis of how much each proposal would cost the average taxpayer, and the state as a whole, compared to one another and to the status quo.

The three alternatives to the Huntsman plan appear to be little more than not-so-stealth attempts to starve the government at a time when schools, highways and health care place huge and legitimate demands on the public purse.

If that's the plan, better we do nothing.