Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s defunct book publishing company ‘owes $1,870 in back taxes’
- Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez founded a children’s book publishing company in 2011
- Brook Avenue Press, which has since been dissolved, reportedly owes $1,870.36 in corporate taxes to New York States
- Ocasio-Cortez was 22 years old when she started the company through a city-funded incubator in The Bronx
- The company was aimed at ‘helping develop and identy stories and literature in urban areas’ for children, but it doesn’t appear to have published a book
A small publishing start-up founded by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez owes New York State back taxes, it has been reported.
Brook Avenue Press, a publisher of children’s books which the freshman congresswoman founded in 2012, owes Albany $1,870.36 in corporate taxes, the New York Post reported.
The company was founded in order to ‘help develop and identify stories and literature in urban areas ….specifically in communities like The Bronx,’ Ocasio-Cortez says in a 2011 YouTube video.
She was just 22 years old at the time she started the company.
Ocasio-Cortez spent $1,000 of her own money to rent office space The Bronx for her company, according to DNAinfo.
A small publishing start-up founded by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez owes New York State back taxes, it has been reported
Brook Avenue Press, a publisher of children’s books which the freshman congresswoman founded in 2012, owes Albany $1,870.36 in corporate taxes. Ocasio-Cortez is listed as the founder of Brook Avenue Press in the above financial disclosure form
The company was founded in order to ‘help develop and identify stories and literature in urban areas ….specifically in communities like The Bronx,’ Ocasio-Cortez says in a 2011 YouTube video. She was just 22 years old at the time she started the company
Months after recording the video, she filed incorporation papers for her company.
At the time, Ocasio-Cortez, who is known for supporting higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans, supported doubling tax deductions for small businesses like hers.
‘You don’t really make a profit in your first year,’ Ocasio-Cortez said in 2012.
‘To get taxed on top of that is a real whammy.’
The state issued a warrant to the company in July of 2017, just two months after Ocasio-Cortez declared her candidacy in the Democratic primary.
Ocasio-Cortez shocked the political world by beating powerful incumbent Joe Crowley, paving the way to her electoral victory in New York’s 14th Congressional District.
New York State taxes corporations on a sliding scale based on revenue.
The Post cited public records which showed that the state dissolved Brook Avenue Press.
The publishing house was launched through the Sunshine Bronx Business Incubator, a New York City-subsidized program designed to help small businesses in The Bronx.
The initiative was headquartered in an old converted factory in the Hunts Point section of The Bronx, where entrepreneurs like Ocasio-Cortez paid monthly rent which ranged between $195 and $275 per person.
Nonetheless, the company failed to publish a book.
‘This is the first we’re hearing of it, and we won’t have any additional comment until we look into it,’ Ocasio-Cortez’s spokesman, Corbin Trent, told the Post on Saturday.