KU News Release

Pulitzer Prize winner and investigative reporter to visit KU

LAWRENCE — New York Times investigative reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston, known for exposing inequities in the U.S. tax code, will speak to business students and the Lawrence community at University of Kansas.

The event will be 6 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 8, at Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union. The event is free, and tickets are not required.

Johnston’s best selling book, Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich — and Cheat Everybody Else, was named the Investigative Book of the Year by Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. Since being published, Perfectly Legal has closed more than 10 loopholes in the U.S. tax code, including tax perks for executives using corporate jets for personal use.

Johnston’s investigations uncovered shocking ways in which the rich evade taxes through cracks in the system. “Taxes involve trade-offs,” said Raquel Alexander, assistant professor in tax at the KU School of Business. “When one person pays less, others pay more.”

Alexander arranged the lecture, and Johnston will make a special appearance the following day in Alexander’s tax research class. Johnston will also meet with students in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication while he is on campus.

“Today, our students are voters,” Alexander said, “but tomorrow they will be policy makers. This generation will soon have an opportunity to create a better tax system, one that promotes fairness and a more equitable distribution of the tax burden. That’s why David Johnston’s work is so significant.”

The lecture is sponsored by the KU School of Business.

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