Fashion Designer Aurora James made headlines after designing the infamous dress worn by Rep. Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.). In red and white, she emblazoned the dress with the slogan, “Tax the rich.”
However, Ocasio-Cortez ran into one big problem.
Critics say her dressmaker hasn’t paid her taxes.
The New York Post reported on Saturday that James has failed to withhold almost $15,000 in income taxes from her employees’ paychecks.
James’s company Brother Vellies has amassed 15 tax warrants in New York state for failing to withhold almost $15,000 in income taxes from employees’ paychecks. James has closed only 12 of these 15 warrants, and the three outstanding warrants come from 2018 and 2019, before the pandemic.
It gets worse.
Between 2018 and 2019, the Internal Revenue Service sent six federal liens toward James for failing to send them the employees’ tax money. The IRS requested $103,220 in unpaid taxes.
In other words, James was taking money out of her employees’ paychecks… but she might not have been sending it to the IRS.
The Post reached out to the IRS for an update, but the agency declined to comment.
Beyond her uncollected taxes, the Post also reported on James’s history of other debts, and it’s a long history. She also allegedly owes uncollected rent and payments for workers compensation.
Yet James’s company reportedly collected more than $40,000 in pandemic relief, financed by the taxpayers.
However, James has hardly been thrifting. She’s been spending lavishly. She bought a $1.6 million house in Los Angeles during the pandemic.
She owes more than $2,500 in property taxes, the Los Angeles County assessor told the Post.
To think that Ocasio-Cortez was talking about “working-class women of color at the Met!”
“We really started having a conversation about what it means to be a working class woman of color at the Met … we can’t just play along, but we need to break the fourth wall.”
— AOC at #MetGala pic.twitter.com/UZj22DjMl3
— The Recount (@therecount) September 14, 2021
It’s fitting that she designed Cortez’s dress for the Met Gala. The Met Gala has recently come under scrutiny for its status as a tax haven for the wealthy. The gala serves as a fundraising event for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a nonprofit.
Critics say the ultra-rich attendees can write off their $35,000 tickets as charitable contributions.
Ocasio-Cortez has remained silent on this tax haven, and she hired an alleged tax evader to design her dress. Rather than addressing these real, fiscal concerns, she prefers to tweet attacks.
Last week James went on CNN to defend Ocasio-Cortez’s dress.
She said, “This message was brought into that room and into a group of people who, ultimately, have to be willing to be more liberal with their economic values.”
Maybe James should think about leading by example.
Congresswoman @AOC turned heads last night at the #Metgala when she wore a dress with the message tax the rich emblazoned on the back. Designer @AuroraJames tells us why this dress at this exclusive event was so important to them. pic.twitter.com/7V1JfKZi14
— Brianna Keilar (@brikeilarcnn) September 14, 2021
The Horn editorial team