Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has often argued for increasing taxes on wealthier Americans, but a new report revealed the hypocritical nature of this approach.
According to the Washington Examiner, Ocasio-Cortez founded a publishing house called Brook Avenue Press in 2012. The child-focused company didn’t last long and was dissolved by the state of New York in 2016.
On July 6, 2017, New York filed a tax warrant to obtain $1,618 in unpaid corporate taxes from the business, the Examiner reported.
Five years later, Ocasio-Cortez has yet to pay any of those outstanding taxes. As a result, the amount she owed had risen to $2,461 as of Wednesday, and a Bronx County Clerk’s Office representative confirmed the warrant was still open.
In March 2019, the New York Post reported an Ocasio-Cortez spokesman promised she would pay the overdue taxes immediately.
When the outlet questioned her aide, Corbin Trent, about the matter when Ocasio-Cortez still had not paid the taxes two weeks later, he got testy.
“I’m her congressional staffer, not her personal accountant,” Trent said.
In a separate article over a year later, the New York Post reported that Ocasio-Cortez’s office had completely changed course.
“The congresswoman is still in the process of contesting the tax warrant,” spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said.
Is Ocasio-Cortez a hypocrite?
“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.”
Not only was this explanation a contradiction of the office’s previous statements, but it was also dubious on its face. New York initially issued the tax warrant less than a year after the business was dissolved, and the reason the price kept increasing is that Ocasio-Cortez failed to pay it.
While $2,461 is not particularly significant in the grand scheme of things, Ocasio-Cortez’s refusal to pay reveals more about her character. This is especially true given her political history.
One of Ocasio-Cortez’s first actions after joining Congress was to propose a 60 to 70 percent tax increase on the wealthiest Americans, CNN reported.
She proposed the increase while speaking to Anderson Cooper on “60 Minutes,” and she said it could be used as a means to fund her radical proposals like the infamous “Green New Deal.”
“There’s an element where, yeah, people are going to have to start paying their fair share in taxes,” Ocasio-Cortez said, according to CNN.
Given the reports about her own refusal to pay corporate taxes, lecturing others about paying their “fair share” is pretty ironic.
Then in 2021, Ocasio-Cortez wore a white dress to the Met Gala with the words “Tax the Rich” in big red letters on the back.
AOC at the #MetGala in a dress that reads “Tax The Rich.” pic.twitter.com/U26ZQb2Loi
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) September 13, 2021
While it is unclear what level of wealth defines “rich,” Ocasio-Cortez makes at least $174,000 as a member of Congress. That is well above the average income in America, and it certainly should be enough to pay off her $2,461 debt.
By refusing to pay her overdue taxes, Ocasio-Cortez is displaying an attitude all too common among Democrats. They believe the rules do not apply to them, and that is no vantage point from which to represent the country.
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