There are times in American politics where the irony just simply outweighs the headlines. Where, no matter what sort of clever wordplay you employ, you can’t beat the pure substance of what’s happening.
Such is the case this week after Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decided to attend the ever-posh Met Gala wearing a dress that read “tax the rich”.
Tickets to the event costing $35,000 each didn’t seem to deter AOC from making the tone-deaf decision, but now, an even stranger bit of irony has arrived.
Designer Aurora James called her “Tax the Rich” dress for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a “powerful message” — but it’s not one she has taken to heart.
The 37-year-old fashionista who made waves at the Met Gala with Democratic-Socialist AOC last week is a notorious tax deadbeat with unpaid debts dogging her in multiple states, records show.
Most of luxe-living James’ arrears center on Cultural Brokerage Agency, an LLC she formed in 2011 to serve as the parent company of her fashion brand, which today is known as Brother Vellies. It’s a favorite of people like Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Meghan Markle.
The company racked up three open tax warrants in New York state for failing to withhold income taxes from employees’ paychecks totaling $14,798, the state Department of Taxation and Finance told The Post. The debts — which were incurred before the pandemic — stem from 2018 and 2019. The company has been hit with 15 warrants in total since 2015.
And that’s not all:
The company got into a deeper hole with the feds. Between April 2018 and April 2019, the Internal Revenue Service placed six federal liens on Cultural Brokerage Agency totaling $103,220. The liens specifically cite the company’s failure to remit employee payroll taxes.
AOC had originally defended herself for wearing the dress to the ultra-swanky event as she claimed that she was a guest of the venue. This prompted the filing of a number of ethics complaints against the House Representative, claiming that her attendance could be perceived as an “impermissible gift”.