Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., turned heads last year by wearing a dress emblazoned with the slogan, “Tax the rich.” The dress’s designer, Aurora James, became caught in a tax evasion scandal shortly afterward.
Now Ocasio-Cortez herself has become mired in a tax scandal… and it’s getting worse.
She’s been hit with one fine after another for neglecting to pay off a tax warrant against her old business, The Washington Examiner reported Thursday after reviewing New York state records.
Ocasio-Cortez started her business, Brook Avenue Press, in 2012 while in her early 20s. The future politician aimed to publish “stories and literature in urban areas like New York, specifically communities like the Bronx,” she said in a YouTube video at the time.
She described herself as the founder of the business while filling out House disclosure forms in 2018, the Examiner reported.
The state dissolved the business in 2016, according to state records reviewed by the Examiner. In New York, the state department can dissolve a business that goes more than two years without paying taxes.
New York state reportedly hit the business with a warrant in July 2017. On Wednesday, the county clerk told the Examiner that the tax warrant remains open… even after five years.
The Examiner reported:
New York state filed a tax warrant against Brook Avenue Press, a children-focused publishing house Ocasio-Cortez founded in 2012, on July 6, 2017, to collect $1,618 in unpaid corporate taxes. Ocasio-Cortez has yet to pay a penny of her overdue corporate taxes, causing the current balance of the tax warrant to swell by 52% to $2,461 as of Wednesday afternoon.
New York dissolved Brook Avenue Press in October 2016, state corporate records show. The state filed its tax warrant against Ocasio-Cortez’s defunct business about two months after she launched her successful primary campaign.
In other words, Ocasio-Cortez’s failed business has reportedly racked up more than $800 in interest and late fees.
Ocasio-Cortez has fielded questions about her tax bill in the past, and her office has given mixed signals about her plans to deal with the bill.
An unnamed aide told the New York Post in March 2019 that the tax bill would be paid shortly.
Another aide, Corbin Trent, later told the paper that Ocasio-Cortez had already started contesting the warrant. However, he denied that he was especially familiar with the congresswoman’s finances.
“I’m her congressional staffer, not her personal accountant,” he added.
Office spokesperson, Lauren Hitt, said that the congresswoman was still contesting the warrant as of May 2020.
“As anyone who’s tried to contest a tax bill in error knows, it takes time,” Ocasio-Cortez spokeswoman Lauren Hitt told the NY Post at the time. “The congresswoman is still in the process of contesting the tax warrant. The business has been closed for several years now, and so we believe that the state Tax Department has continued to collect the franchise tax in error.”
The congresswoman’s office has yet to publicly comment on this development. As of Thursday, it remains unclear whether she plans to pay the bill or whether she’s still contesting it.
Ocasio-Cortez can likely afford the bill. Rank-and-file congressmembers make $174,000 per year, according to budget releases. She can presumably scrape together $2,461, despite the high standard of living required for House members.
Still, Ocasio-Cortez sloganeers about taxing the rich while also refusing to pay her “fair share.”
She said in an Instagram video last year, “They want you to think that when we talk about rich, we’re talking about a doctor or a lawyer instead of someone with hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars. That’s what we mean by ‘rich.'”
Critics question whether Ocasio-Cortez can enact her policy proposals without raising taxes on doctors, lawyers, or herself.
The Horn editorial team