US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to raise taxes on the rich — but not pay her own.
The Democratic socialist congresswoman from The Bronx still hasn’t paid a 7-year-old tax bill left over from a failed business venture.
AOC had founded Brook Avenue Press, a publishing house that sought designers, artists and writers from urban areas to help paint The Bronx in a positive way in children’s stories, in 2012.
As The Post previously reported, public records show the state dissolved the company in October 2016. The state can make such a move when a business fails to pay corporate taxes or file a return.
The state Tax Department then filed a warrant against her now-defunct business on July 6, 2017, over a $1,618.36 unpaid bill.
As of Friday, the tax warrant had still not been satisfied, and the outstanding balance had grown to $2,088.78, the department said.
“She just thinks she’s better than everyone else. Clearly, she’s worse,” Hank Sheinkopf, spokesman for AOC’s chief June primary-race opponent, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, told The Post.
But Ocasio-Cortez’s camp says the rep is challenging the $2,088.78 bill because it was issued “in error.
“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,” said Lauren Hitt, an AOC spokeswoman.
“As anyone who’s tried to contest a tax bill in error knows, it takes time,” Hitt added.
AOC, a first-term incumbent, will face Democratic voters in the June 23 primary in the 14th Congressional District covering portions of The Bronx and Queens.
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.
Meanwhile, the financial statement of Caruso-Cabrera, a former CNBC anchor, has yet to be publicly posted. Her campaign spokesman said it was filed Friday — the May 15 deadline.
Story cited here.
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