A biography for David Cay Johnstonhasn’t been written yet.
“In every place where there is no real tax system, such as Honduras or Afghanistan, there is no widespread wealth.”
“[O]ur tax system now levies the poor, the middle class and even the upper middle class to subsidize the rich...”
“[S]ound bytes of politicians in both parties bear as much connection to the reality of the tax system as my... grandson's belief in Santa.”
“If you have heard about companies using a Bermuda mailbox to escape American taxes or that the IRS audits the poor more than the rich or that Enron paid no taxes or that executives have amassed massive untaxed fortunes or that the retired chief of General Electric had a free corporate jet, then you have already had a taste for some of the more shocking stories that I have come across. ...This is not just about facts, figures and statistics.”
“[T]axes are at the core of our democracy.”
“No serious coverage of taxes is possible without reading the journal Tax Notes published by {{w|Tax Analysts}}, a nonprofit enterprise whose beneficiaries include reporters.”
“By deciding not to implement a rule to reduce the chances of truck drivers and train engineers' falling asleep on the job, Trump's Transportation Department has put at risk the lives of those workers as well as the lives of families traveling on our nations highways and trains. And Trump appointed to the Supreme Court Neil Gorsuch, a judge who ruled that a company has the right to fire a worker who chose not to freeze to death on the job.”