THIS EDITORIAL board has pushed for much of a decade for “comprehensive tax reform.”

You may not have noticed, because as battle cries go, it just doesn’t stir the blood or grab attention the way, say, the Confederate flag does. Nevertheless, it’s been a steady refrain. Time after time, we have dismissed piecemeal efforts to tinker with our tax system, insisting that what we must do in South Carolina is determine what we want government to do to help our state move forward, then scrap our whole rickety, rotting, hated system of taxation and design a new one from the bottom up to pay for the things we need.

You can’t just poke at the system in one spot, and ignore the fact that you’ve caused it to bulge out somewhere else, we’ve argued. You have to take on the whole thing, considering all the ramifications of what you’re doing.

Well, starting today, our commitment to comprehensive tax reform will be something you can’t miss. That long editorial on the facing page — which has dislodged this column and the letters from their customary seats — is just the beginning. Over the next 10 weeks or more, we will engage in the most concerted editorial effort you have seen on these pages since — well, since the flag, video poker and the lottery.

Only this time it will be different. Before, we knew early on what we wanted to see happen (the flag down, video poker gone, the lottery rejected). This time, it’s a lot more complicated.

After years of our crying “comprehensive tax reform” in the rhetorical wilderness, some legislators — led by Reps. Rick Quinn, R-Richland, and Vincent Sheheen, D-Kershaw — are actually trying to deliver it. Some others, including lawmakers, the governor and school finance officers, have offered competing plans. But none of those is nearly as comprehensive as the Quinn-Sheheen effort.

This actually presents us with a bit of a problem. An actual, real-life plan to revamp the whole tax structure presents so many complex, interwoven policy decisions — each of them with potentially staggering consequences to our state — that it’s not only difficult for an editorial board to simply give it a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, it would be irresponsible for us to do so at this point.

We’re not sure whether we buy the whole plan yet or not (neither are Messrs. Quinn and Sheheen for that matter, as the plan keeps changing), and it has too many worthy things about it to simply be dismissed. We’ve discussed it and discussed it, and the main conclusion we keep drawing is that we need to know more. So as this plan evolves, we’re studying it — and its competitors as well. We’re wrestling with a bewildering array of facts, figures, conjectures and philosophical considerations. And as we do so, we realize that lawmakers and regular taxpayer/voters are facing the same complex set of interlocking choices.

So basically, what we’ve decided to do is let you, the reader, in on our internal discernment process. We’re laying out all the pros and cons and in-betweens that we’re considering before recommending any particular proposal. We have a plan right now for 18 editorials and 23 columns addressing specific aspects of this issue. That number will probably grow before we’re done. Except for one or two pieces I’ll tap out, all will be written by the two most knowledgeable journalists in the area of public finance in South Carolina, my colleagues, Associate Editors Nina Brook and Cindi Ross Scoppe.

We have a detailed plan, and we know what kinds of questions we’ll be trying to answer. They will include: “What does an ideal system look like?” “Is it smart to put all our educational eggs in one basket (the Legislature)?” “Which of our taxes are high, which are low, which are just right?” “Is this plan regressive?” “What is the relationship between spending and good schools?” “Is this plan comprehensive enough? What does it leave out?”

... and many, many more. We don’t yet know the answers to all of these, but we hope that we — and you — will know a lot more by the time we’re done. As we go along, we hope you will share your own insights into these questions.

What’s the ultimate goal? A fair, smart tax system for South Carolina that provides exactly what we need — not a penny more or less — to fund our efforts to build a better future for our children.

Join us on this quest.

Write to Mr. Warthen at bwarthen@thestate.com.