AOC owes $2,000 in unpaid taxes from failed business venture despite demanding tax hikes on rich, report claims
ALEXANDRIA Ocasio-Cortez allegedly owes more than $2,000 in unpaid taxes from a failed business venture - despite demanding tax hikes on the rich, a report claims.
The seven-year-old bill of $2,088.78 remains leftover from a now defunct publishing house set up by the congresswoman in 2012, but her team say the bill was issued "in error".
The US Rep. founded Brook Avenue Press, a publishing house to "help develop and identify stories and literature in urban areas ….specifically in communities like The Bronx," Ocasio-Cortez said in a 2011 YouTube video.
Established when she was just 22, the company sought designers, artists and writers from urban areas to help paint the area in a positive way for children’s stories but was dissolved by the state in October of 2016.
The state is able to make such a move when a business fails to pay corporate taxes or file a return.
The following year, the state Tax Department filed a warrant against the now-defunct business, according to public records as seen by the New York Post.
The warrant was issued on July 6, 2017, over a $1,618.36 unpaid bill.
However, the bill appears unpaid and the publication reports that as of Friday, the outstanding balance had grown to $2,088.78, according to the state department.
Hank Sheinkopf, spokesman for AOC’s chief June primary-race opponent, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera told The “She just thinks she’s better than everyone else. Clearly, she’s worse".
Meanwhile, Caruso-Cabrera's financial statement has yet to be publicly posted after her campaign spokesman said it was filed Friday – the May 15 deadline.
Those in support of Ocasio-Cortez say the Democratic socialist congresswoman from The Bronx is challenging the $2,088.78 bill because it was issued “in error".
AOC spokeswoman Lauren Hitt explained: “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."
“As anyone who’s tried to contest a tax bill in error knows, it takes time,” Hitt added.
Ocasio-Cortez will face Democratic voters in the June 23 primary in the 14th Congressional District covering portions of The Bronx and Queens as a first-term incumbent.
She shocked the political world when she toppled Ex-Congressman and former Queens Democratic Party Chairman Joe Crowley in the 2018 Democratic primary.
In one of her first moves as a congresswoman in 2019, AOC said taxes on the country’s wealthiest should be increased to as much as 70 percent.
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Last month, Ocasio-Cortez , saying it's not enough to help "mom and pop" businesses.
She said it is "a joke when Republicans say that they have urgency around this bill," claiming they are more concerned with big companies instead of struggling small business owners.
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