WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 - The White House will soon begin reviewing specific options to overhaul the federal tax system, edging into one of the most volatile economic issues, administration officials said today.

After studying the issue for months and promising to make recommendations by the end of the year, Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill told an audience in Iowa today that he intended to deliver options to the White House in a few weeks.  Aids said he meant some time after Election Day.

Mr. O'Neill has kept the details of his review under wraps, and it is unclear whether his recommendations will be the starting point for a debate in the White House or something closer to a final administration position.

Economists who have spoken with Mr. O'Neill and his staff said he seemed determined to eliminate or radically revise the corporate income tax, which he has long criticized as an inefficient, if not economically harmful, way of raising revenue, and to simplify personal income taxes.

All of President Bush's top economic advisers have a longstanding interest in rewriting the tax code, and Mr. Bush has expressed enthusiasm for making that a priority.  Changing the law would inevitably create winners and losers, and any proposal would no doubt set off a fierce lobbying battle and an intense partisan debate that would demand a considerable investment of time and political capital on the president's part.

People who have consulted the administration on the topic said they had the impression that the White House did not intend to make a specific legislative proposal soon, especially if Mr. Bush pushes ahead next year with his proposal to add personal investment accounts to Social Security.

Instead, the people who have met the officials said, the White House appears more likely to spend the next year or two building support for simplifying the tax law and eliminating provisions that they view as inhibiting economic growth, perhaps making the issue a centerpiece of Mr. Bush's re-election campaign.

Administration officials have said the outcome of the Congressional elections on Nov. 5 will influence their decision on how to proceed.   Democrats have for the most part opposed changing personal income taxes in ways that Republicans support, regarding those proposals as efforts to shift more of the tax burden from the wealthy and to middle- and lower-income people.

Any proposal to change how taxes are levied on corporations would also have to contend with anger among members of both parties over this year's disclosures of corporate malfeasance and tax avoidance.

To the degree that any plan involved reducing tax revenues, it would also run into growing budget deficits.

Mr. O'Neill has made clear that he views the tax law as a major block for the economy.  In Iowa today, he called it an abomination, Reuters reported.  The secretary has signaled for some time that he intends to push ahead with an overhaul.

"It's pretty clear that this treasury secretary truly has a passion for tax reform, especially when it comes to abolition of the corporate income tax structure," said Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, a political action committee that promotes supply-side economic policies.  Mr. Moore recently met Mr. O'Neill to discuss tax reform.

Republicans have for years debated many approaches to changing the law, and they often disagree strenuously among themselves about the best approach.

Bruce Bartlett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative research group, said Mr. O'Neill and Mr. Bush's two other top economists, Lawrence B. Lindsey, chief White House economic policy adviser, and R. Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, had each advocated detailed differing approaches.

When Mr. O'Neill was chief executive of Alcoa, he strongly supported a plan proposed in the early 1990's by Senators Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, and Sam Nunn, a Georgia Democrat who retired from Congress six years ago.

The plan would have retained the basic shape of the progressive income tax for individuals but would exempt from taxation all income dedicated to savings and investment, effectively limiting taxation to income used for consumption.

For corporations, the income tax would be replaced by a system similar to European-style value added taxes.  Companies would be taxed at a flat rate on their revenues minus what they pay to other companies in the United States for goods, services and equipment.  In effect, companies would be able to write off immediately the entire cost of their investments in new factories and equipment, instead of writing off the costs gradually over many years, as they do under current law.

Mr. Lindsey was an early proponent of a single-rate flat tax for individuals and businesses, Mr. Bartlett said.  In the first Bush administration, Mr. Hubbard helped develop a proposal to exempt many low- and middle-income people from paying federal income taxes by sharply raising the standard deduction.