AS THE LATEST in a long series of tax study committees gets down to serious work this afternoon, there is some worry that it will be no different from all its disappointing predecessors: It will study and study and study and, ultimately, produce nothing. That is, if it doesn't fall apart first.

While the threat of sound and fury signifying nothing is always with us, given our history, it has been underscored by recent public comments from the panel's co-chairmen, which revealed vastly different approaches to the task.

Here's Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman: "If we're just going to do revenue-neutral, we have not accomplished what I think needs to be done, and that is generate additional moneys to meet the needs of the people. I look at Medicaid as one prime example. We absolutely have got to find a recurring source to fund Medicaid."

And House Ways and Means Chairman Bobby Harrell: "This is not a means to raise revenue. This is a means to create reform."

Both men say they don't see a conflict in their approaches, and both are optimistic about the panel's chance of actually producing a meaningful road map to tax reform -- one that the Legislature won't just toss out the window. Sen. Leatherman is especially optimistic that the Legislature will make some changes next year as a result of the panel's work.

So is there room to work out what sound like irreconcilable differences?

I believe so.

More to the point, these differences must be worked out.

Our tax code is a disjointed mess, cobbled together and -- more significantly -- pulled apart in fits and starts over the years, in response to the latest need for more money or the latest vocal demand for tax relief.

With serious pressure mounting in some circles to raise selected taxes, in other circles to reduce or even eliminate selected taxes and in the intriguing circle forming around Republican Rep. Rick Quinn and Democratic Rep. Vincent Sheheen to push through an ambitious tax reform proposal that goes beyond piecemeal but falls far short of comprehensive, the need to break free from our crisis-of-the-moment approach is more urgent than ever. And the best chance of that happening is with the strong and thoughtful guidance of this group of three senators, three representatives and three tax policy wonks appointed by our wonkish governor.

The good news is that when you get beyond the two chairmen's absolutist statements, there is room for agreement.

When I ask Mr. Leatherman how he can make sure that his push to generate more money doesn't drown out the very complicated process of reform, his response is reassuring. "My goal is to look at the entire tax policy in the state, and that will be my number-one priority, and of course hopefully we can generate some additional revenue," he says.

Mr. Harrell sees it as a question of primary goals, not of irreconcilable differences. "It may happen that you end up generating revenue," he tells me. "But the intent of tax reform to me is to simply make the code more equitable and to make it more conducive to economic development."

Both men have legitimate concerns, and goals. Unless the Legislature finally decides that our government needs to shed itself of broad swaths of service areas -- and identifies those swaths -- Sen. Leatherman is correct when he says we are going to need to come up with additional revenue next year. But Rep. Harrell is correct when he says that the primary focus of a tax study committee should be tax policy -- not tax rates.

Just as it was wrong for the last joint tax study committee to approach its work bound and determined to eliminate the income tax on senior citizens and the sales tax on food (and to come out with a proposal to do just that even though its own very smart criteria and its own well-reasoned findings did not support such a proposal), it would be short-sighted for this panel to approach its work determined to raise taxes.

The fact of the matter is that this panel isn't going to decide what our overall tax burden is; the Legislature is going to decide that.

What this panel needs to decide is how that tax burden will be spread around: how much will come from property taxes, from sales taxes, from income taxes, from other taxes and fees; how much will come from the rich, the middle class, the poor. This panel needs to decide what policy goals, such as economic development, it wants to effect through tax policy. It needs to decide which taxes will be collected by state government and which by local governments.

And then the Legislature needs to listen to what the panel has to say and either approve it or improve upon it -- and then approve that.