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David Cay Johnston (born Dec. 24, 1948) is an investigative journalist and author. Until April 2008, he was the tax reporter with The New York Times for thirteen years. He now works as an author, reporter, radio and television essayist, and lecturer.

On June 23, 2008, Johnston inaugurated “Johnston’s Take,” a regular column that he writes for Tax Analysts, the nonprofit publisher of the weekly trade journal Tax Notes. Johnston also is a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at Syracuse University College of Law, where he teaches the courses History of the Regulation of Trade and Business and Property and Tax from Ancient Athens to Modern America

On Aug. 3, 2009, he started the monthly "By The Numbers" column for The Nation.

Johnston is the author of best-selling books on tax and economic policy, the most recently published of which is How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill, about hidden subsidies, rigged markets, and corporate socialism. It follows his earlier book The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich...and Cheat Everybody Else, a New York Times bestseller on the U.S. tax system that won the Investigative Reporters and Editors 2003 Book of the Year award.

Johnston's first book, How America Inc. Bought Out Murder Inc. to Win Control of the Casino Business is an account of how, in the 1980s, the junk-bond kings usurped mob control of the casino industry. The book discusses corruption in the industry and the role of the U.S. government in that corruption.

Johnston received the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting "for his penetrating and enterprising reporting that exposed loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code, which was instrumental in bringing about reforms." He was a finalist in 2003 "for his stories that displayed exquisite command of complicated U.S. tax laws and of how corporations and individuals twist them to their advantage." He was also a finalist in 2000 "for his lucid coverage of problems resulting from the reorganization of the Internal Revenue Service."

Johnston has investigated Los Angeles Police Department political spying and other abuses, Barron Hilton, misuse of charitable funds at United Way, news manipulation at WJIM-TV, and Donald Trump's net worth. He once hunted down a killer whom the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department failed to catch, resulting in an innocent man winning acquittal at his fifth trial.

In 1968, at age 19, Johnston began his career at the San Jose Mercury News. In 1973, he left the Mercury News to study at the University of Chicago under a five-month fellowship. He then took a position as an investigative reporter at the Detroit Free Press in its Lansing bureau from 1973 to 1976 and later worked as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times from 1976 to 1988. Johnston then worked as a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1988 to 1995. He joined The New York Times in February 1995.

Like columnist Steven Pearlstein, Johnston has won praise for his writings even though he has no formal education or training in economics. Johnston studied economics at the University of Chicago graduate school and at six other colleges, earning six years of college credits but no degree because he took upper level and graduate level courses almost exclusively.

Johnston has been critical of news media coverage of the 2008 $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. In a letter to American journalist and blogger Jim Romenesko, Johnston wrote, "In covering the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street don't repeat the failed lapdog practices that so damaged our reputations in the rush to war in Iraq and the adoption of the Patriot Act. Don't assume that Congress must act instantly, as so many news stories state as if it was an immutable fact. Don't assume there is a case just because officials say there is." Johnston has been cited favorably by Glenn Greenwald as well as other bailout critics. On September 26, 2008, Johnston said: "If you look around, you'll notice that banks are still making ordinary loans to ordinary businesses. Your mailbox is still full of proposals to sell you credit cards and extend you debt. The Internet still has ads for these very toxic mortgages that are at the heart of this. They're being advertised all over the Internet."..."And my point is not to argue that there is or is not a crisis, but that journalists need to begin not by questioning around the edges but by going to the core question. Is this the least expensive way to do this? Are there market solutions that might be applied?"

Johnston is also a founder and board chairman of American Family Resort Hotels, a small lodging management company run by his oldest son.

He is married to Jennifer Leonard, who is president and executive director of the Rochester Area Community Foundation. They live in Brighton, New York, a suburb of Rochester. He has eight children and five grandchildren.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "David Cay Johnston", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0