A Denver city councilwoman wants to tax white-owned businesses to atone for ‘stolen land’
Candi CdeBaca, a 37 year old Democratic socialist, believes that white-owned businesses should pay reparations for the sins of slavery.
CdeBaca told a Denver business forum last week that a race-based tax could be levied by the business improvement districts.
“Capitalism was built on stolen land, stolen labors, and stolen resources” CdeBaca told the forum at the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance.
She then added: “You could be collecting those extra taxes from white-led business all over the city and redistributing them back to black and brown owned businesses”
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, a business improvement district is managed by local business owners, residents, and local government officials and can levy incremental tax increases which are then redistributed in a specific geographic region
Breitbart reports: While a tax levy can be distributed to assist underserved businesses, the tax can’t be applied based on an individual’s skin color. That would be illegal under federal law, but the 37-year-old argued this plan would not be illegal since the taxes levied are “voluntary.”
A spokesperson for Denver’s Department of Finance told 9 News this was false.
“Non-residentially assessed property owners within the BID are required to pay the additional taxes/fees,” said spokesperson Courtney Meihls. “It’s not voluntary.”
Footage of CdeBaca became viral after being picked up by the Libs of TikTok page, garnering the video more than 4 million views. Critics have said this proposal is going too far.
“This is the third time CdeBaca has been targeted by a white nationalist mob, and this is part of a concerted playbook to harass, intimidate, and silence progressives and in particular, marginalized communities,” CdeBaca’s office said in a written statement.
But black urban areas are not the only communities at a disadvantage. The Appalachian Regional Commission considered 38.6% Appalachia counties — a predominant white population — to be economically distressed. These disadvantages include greater geographic isolation, less public transportation, and fewer health screenings and physicians available, as reported in a National Library of Medicine paper.
