Liz MacDonald

Elizabeth MacDonald (b. Jan. 2, 1962, raised in Rockville Centre, N.Y.) is the stocks editor of the Fox Business Network and appears on the network's t.v. shows throughout the trading day.

MacDonald is a regular panelist on the "Fox News" show "Forbes on Fox" and has been with the show, one of the most-watched weekend shows on cable t.v., since its inception in 2001.

Respected as an award-winning journalist and commentator on television and radio both in the United States and abroad, MacDonald, who reports indicate has been a business journalist for two decades, has received more than a dozen journalism awards.

With stories that spotlight investor and taxpayer abuses, MacDonald's primary beat is stock market corruption and corporate accounting abuses as well as the IRS and taxes. Members of the United States Congress have noted that an award-winning investigative series about the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that MacDonald reported helped lead to broader taxpayer rights and reforms at the agency. It also led to MacDonald being called in to testify before Congress on IRS abuses of taxpayers as well as IRS reforms.

MacDonald's IRS coverage has ranged from Congressional abuses of the agency to the Kennedys' clandestine use of the IRS to attack its political enemies to Scientology's secret IRS deal, and even President George H.W. Bush's secret fight with the agency.

MacDonald also was one of the first journalists in the country to sound the alarms about the coming wave of corporate accounting abuses in the mid '90s while covering the first wave of accounting scandals at the Wall Street Journal. MacDonald also created Forbes Magazine's top-rated feature, "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women," in 2004.

Career

MacDonald received a B.A. with honors from Canisius College in 1984. Before joining Fox Business, MacDonald was a senior editor at "Forbes Magazine", where she covered the stock market and broke stories on corporate accounting abuses in articles, columns as well as in cover stories. MacDonald created "Forbes Magazine's" World's 100 Most Powerful Women annual rankings in 2004.

Television

MacDonald has appeared as a regular guest on and has co-hosted CNBC's "Kudlow & Company" with Larry Kudlow, is a regular on Fox News Channel's "Forbes on Fox", "Your World with Neil Cavuto", "The O'Reilly Factor" and has been a guest on NBC's "The Today Show", ABC's "World News Tonight", CBS "This Morning", C-SPAN, Court TV, as well as on radio shows such as ABC News talk radio and NPR.

MacDonald has gone toe-to-toe on the air with such notables as Pat Buchanan, Ben Stein, Robert Reich, Art Laffer, Stephen Moore, Steve Forbes, as well as energy expert Daniel Yergin, president of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, and Adam Posen, co-author with Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and Frederic Mishkin of a book about inflation-targeting.

Print journalism

Before "Forbes", MacDonald covered stock market and corporate accounting abuses for "The Wall Street Journal", delivering front-page stories, Heard on the Street and Economic Outlook columns. While at "The Wall Street Journal", MacDonald covered the first wave of corporate accounting scandals, and also broke stories on corruption in the accounting and auditing industry.

In addition, MacDonald delivered for "The Wall Street Journal" the story, based on Freedom of Information Act filings, about the Kennedy Administration's secret program to audit its political enemies, a program that eventually resulted in the audits of 10,000 right-wing groups under the auspices of tax-exempt code violations [The Wall Street Journal, January 28, 1997, "The Kennedys and the IRS"] .

Adding a new wrinkle to the Kennedy assassination, MacDonald’s story reported that the IRS under the Kennedy administration audited Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's group, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. And MacDonald's story reported that the Kennedy's IRS dragnet even targeted for audits non-partisan groups, such as B'Nai Brith, the Daughters of Zion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, in a bid to not appear biased, according to the article's quotes from Kennedy's IRS commissioner Mortimer Caplin.

MacDonald also delivered the scoop for "The Wall Street Journal" on the secret details of the historic, previously undisclosed settlement between the Church of Scientology and the IRS that finally gave the group its tax-exempt status after a fight lasting nearly three decades. The IRS's unprecedented decision shocked tax experts, saved Scientology an estimated $1 billion in back taxes and IRS fines, and served as an invaluable public relations tool in Scientology's worldwide campaign for acceptance as a mainstream religion [The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 30, 1997, "Scientologists and IRS Settled for $12.5 million"] . For 26 years Scientology had been at war with the IRS over the agency's decision in 1967 to deny it tax-exempt status, a refusal that had been upheld by U.S. courts.

The IRS had ruled that Scientology did not qualify for tax-exempt status because founder L. Ron Hubbard, his family and church officials were enriching themselves with church funds. Subsequently, U.S. courts agreed, noting in addition that Scientology profits from the sale of its books and materials, as well as its "sacrament" of "auditing," in which members must pay to purge negative thoughts or "engrams." IRS agents subsequently targeted Scientology for numerous investigations and audits. In retaliation, Scientology and its members filed more than 50 law suits against the IRS and its officials. Scientology officials also had been accused of breaking into IRS and United States Department of Justice offices to illegally seize documents and conduct wiretapping operations against government officials.

MacDonald's story revealed that, despite owing the IRS as much as $1 billion in fines and back taxes, Scientology settled its historic fight with the IRS in 1993 for just $12.5 million. MacDonald's story reported that, in an unprecedented move, the IRS gave Scientology tax-exempt status, let Scientologists deduct on their individual tax returns "auditing" fees and also granted tax-exempt status to Scientology's 7,056 ton, 440-foot cruise ship, Freewinds, which sails in the Caribbean.

It had been reported that what may have triggered the IRS settlement was the fact that famous Scientologists Tom Cruise and John Travolta had personally lobbied the Clinton administration and then IRS commissioner Fred Goldberg on Scientology's behalf. At the time Travolta was filming the loosely based Clinton movie, "Primary Colors," and Cruise was reportedly upset over protests in Germany over the release of his movies there (Germany for years had outlawed Scientology).

Prior to "The Wall Street Journal", MacDonald was the financial editor for "Worth Magazine" and covered the IRS and taxes for "Money Magazine". At "Money Magazine", MacDonald reported an award-winning investigative series on widespread abuses of taxpayers by the IRS, which members of the United States Congress have subsequently noted helped lead to improved taxpayer rights and reforms at the agency [MONEY Magazine, April 1990, "IRS Mess"; MONEY Magazine, June 1990, "Horribly Out of Control"; MONEY Magazine, October 1990, "Presumed Guilty by the IRS"; MONEY Magazine, April 1991, "Who Cheats on Their Income Taxes"; MONEY Magazine, August 1994, "How the IRS Targets You"] .

MacDonald also delivered the scoop on the secret fight between President George H. W. Bush and the IRS over his state residency status (Maine vs Washington, D.C.), which led to President Bush's use of a room at The Houstonian, a Houston, Texas hotel, as his primary residence [MONEY Magazine, January 1992, "How President Bush Cuts His Taxes"] .

The move let the president avoid Maine and District of Columbia taxes. MacDonald's story provided grist for Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign stump speeches and for editorials and political cartoons nationwide, including Doonesbury.

And MacDonald broke the news on Congress’s own personal IRS office on Capitol Hill, where members of Congress got the IRS's personal help in preparing their individual tax returns under the convoluted tax laws they write [MONEY Magazine, April 1993, "How Congress Does Its Taxes"] .

References

External links

* [http://www.foxbusiness.com/our-team/personalities/elizabeth-macdonald.html FoxBusiness.com bio]