Liz MacDonald

Early years

MacDonald was born on January 2, 1962 in Rockville Centre, New York,, NY.; she is one of eight children. Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y. has recognized MacDonald as a distinguished alumna; MacDonald graduated with honors in 1984.

Journalism career

Congress has called MacDonald in twice to testify about IRS abuses of taxpayers as well as IRS reforms that would better protect taxpayers. MacDonald has argued on camera her support for same-sex marriage and over-the-counter birth control without a prescription, noting repeatedly on camera studies show teen pregnancies, STDs and abortions have dropped due to contraceptives, and quipped that "if men could get pregnant, there would be chocolate-covered Advil and a four-day work week." MacDonald has also criticized President Trump for "a lack of civility in public discourse," including his attacks on judges, his wrongful war on "fake news," and for calling women names of "barnyard animals," noting, "it's unforgivable, the lack of civility, he only demeans himself." MacDonald recently condemned his "unacceptable, divisive" response to Charlottesville and tweeted soon after on the day of the violence: "Stop white supremacist terror. Stop hatred & bigotry. Now."

MacDonald's column, Emac's Bottom Line, can be found on both the Fox Business and Fox News websites. MacDonald has been a guest commentator on television and radio both in the U.S. and abroad, and according to her Fox bio has received more than a dozen journalism awards, including the Gerald Loeb award for excellence and the Society of Professional Journalists' excellence in journalism award. MacDonald is also a subject of author Robin Weaver's 2016 book, "25 Exceptional Women and Their Stories," along with former prosecutor Linda Fairstein, Wall Street pioneer Muriel Siebert, and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, among others.

MacDonald is the author of the historical novel Skirting Heresy: The Life and Times of Margery Kempe (Franciscan Media, June 2014), which, according to the book's Amazon page, Kirkus Reviews praised as a "well-written, elegant, clear, and engaging" work, Bloomberg News arts and culture editor said the book is "a work of scholarship and the imagination," RealClearMarkets stated the novel is an "engrossing, fascinating book, an important revival of a timeless life story," the National Catholic Reporter declared Skirting Heresy is "an entertaining" novel written in a "clear, no-nonsense style," and Academia.edu said it is "a highly recommended, fascinating narrative, MacDonald's writing style is crisp and draws the reader deeper into the narrative experience, an excellent resource for any student."

MacDonald has appeared on NBC's The Today Show, ABC's World News Tonight, ABC's Nightline, Your World with Neil Cavuto, "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren", CBS This Morning, CNBC's Kudlow & Company with Larry Kudlow, C-SPAN and Court TV as well as radio shows such as ABC News talk radio and NPR.

MacDonald's primary beat is stock market corruption, corporate accounting abuses, the IRS and taxes. Members of the U.S. 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. MacDonald also was one of the first journalists in the country to sound the alarm about the coming wave of corporate accounting scandals in the mid to late '90s while at the Wall Street Journal.

MacDonald's coverage include stories about the government's historic bailout of Wall Street and the accounting fraud and insolvency of Lehman Bros., beginning with a series of five columns starting in late 2007, before it collapsed a year later. In addition, MacDonald covered the collapse and bailouts of AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Citigroup, executive compensation scandals, and the abuse of taxpayer funds in Washington. MacDonald has also covered behind-the-scenes bailout controversies at the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve, and recently broke news about SeaWorld's accounting scams to cover up earnings problems as the fallout of its abuses of Orca whales, the subject of the documentary film Blackfish. MacDonald also broke news on the devastating impact of super storm Sandy on New York and New Jersey.

MacDonald's IRS coverage includes breaking news on the Kennedys' secret IRS audits of its political enemies, including the news that under the Kennedy Administration the IRS audited Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's group Fair Play for Cuba Committee. MacDonald also broke the news on the Church of Scientology's secret deal with the IRS to become a world religion, as well as Congressional abuses of the IRS, and President George H.W. Bush's secret fight with the agency.

MacDonald has said on camera she took a backwater beat virtually no journalist was covering, the IRS, and has said on camera: "I spent a lot of time in lonely, near empty Congressional hearing rooms in the '80s and '90s listening to IRS officials testify."

Television journalism

MacDonald has debated on T.V. former presidential candidates, Congressmen and Senators, as well as notables such as Alan Dershowitz, Pat Buchanan, Ben Stein, Robert Reich, Art Laffer, Stephen Moore, Steve Forbes, Nobel winner Robert Shiller, 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

While at the Wall Street Journal, MacDonald produced front-page stories, Heard on the Street columns, editorials, Economic Outlook columns, and broke news in the late '90s about the first wave of corporate accounting abuses, as well as scoops on corruption in the accounting 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 IRS program to audit its political enemies, a program that eventually resulted in the IRS audits of more than 10,000 groups under the auspices of tax-exempt code violations.

Along with reporting that the IRS under the Kennedy audited Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's group, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. MacDonald reported that the Kennedys' IRS dragnet targeted for audits non-partisan groups, such as B'nai B'rith, the Daughters of Zion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, in a bid to not appear politically 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 settlement between the Church of Scientology and the IRS that finally established the group as a world religion and gave Scientology nonprofit status, after a fight lasting nearly three decades.

Prior to joining the The Wall Street Journal, MacDonald was the financial editor and wrote cover stories for Worth and covered the IRS and taxes for Money.

At Money, MacDonald reported an award-winning investigative series on widespread IRS abuses of taxpayers, which members of the U.S. Congress have subsequently noted helped lead to improved taxpayer rights and reforms at the agency.

MacDonald also delivered the scoop on the secret fight between President George H. W. Bush and the IRS over his state residency status (Bush had declared Maine, the IRS, Washington, D.C.). After the IRS ruled his residency was D.C., the former president rented a room at The Houstonian, a Houston, Texas hotel, calling it his primary residence—a move that also helped garner Texas's electoral college votes.

MacDonald's story reported that the move let the president avoid Maine and District of Columbia taxes. MacDonald's story help form the basis of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign stump speeches and for editorials and political cartoons nationwide, including Doonesbury by turning the issue to Clinton’s advantage.

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 tax laws they write.