Wall Street Journal, Journalist Voices: Laura Saunders:
Laura Saunders is the current writer of “Tax Report,” The Wall Street Journal’s oldest column and a favorite with readers. She has long specialized in writing about taxes, first at Forbes and since 2009 for the Journal. “Taxes sit squarely at the intersection of economics and politics, with consequences for everybody. I enjoy trying to make them clear for Journal readers,” she says.
She also studies economic thought in literature and has lectured on how Moby-Dick’s focus on whaling makes it the greatest novel about American business. She is a native of Tennessee with a B.A. from Sewanee: The University of the South, and an M.A. from Columbia University.
Q: How would you describe what you do each day?
A: I read, report and write about taxes. All tax, all the time. …
How did you get to the WSJ?
I came to the Journal in 2009, after nearly 20 years at Forbes and a decade of freelancing plus getting most of a Ph.D. in literature and economics. I had long specialized in taxes, and the Journal needed a tax reporter because Tom Herman was retiring. I was thrilled to come to the Journal, as I had always admired it. …
Where do you find your stories?
As my amazing D.C. colleague Rich Rubin says, there’s a tax angle on everything. So I read tax publications and watch IRS releases, but I also follow general news and popular culture. The column about home-storage gold IRAs came from a dubious radio ad.
