About the article – David Cay Johnston is a columnist for tax.com and teaches the tax, property and regulatory law of the ancient world at Syracuse University College of Law and Whitman School of Management, Syracuse, N.Y. He was commissioned by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies to write this article exposing some of the myths of the U. S. tax system in time for Tax Day 2011. It is being published this week by dozens of alternative newsweeklies in cities across the United States.

Johnston has also been called the “de facto chief tax enforcement officer of the United States” because his reporting in the New York Times shut down many tax dodges and schemes, just two of them valued by Congress at $260 billion.

Johnston received a 2001 Pulitzer Prize for exposing tax loopholes and inequities. He wrote two bestsellers on taxes, Perfectly Legal and Free Lunch.

Later this year David Cay Johnston will be out with a new book, The Fine Print, revealing how big business, with help from politicians, abuses plain English to rob you blind.