Disney News

Tag: taxes

  • Disney World Sues Tax Appraiser Claiming Property Taxes are Too High

    Disney World Sues Tax Appraiser Claiming Property Taxes are Too High

    Disney World has been fighting Orange County over it’s property tax assessments since 2015 and now the company has filed 11 new lawsuits in Orange Circuit Court aimed at Property Appraiser Rick Singh and his 2018 appraisal of the Orlando resort.

    Singh doesn’t follow “professionally accepted appraisal practices,” according to Disney. Singh has assessed the Magic Kingdom at $468 million and Epcot at $511 million, Hollywood Studios at $350 million and Animal Kingdom for $429 million, according recently filed lawsuits.

    “The increases in the assessments of our property have been unreasonable and unjustified since 2015,” said Disney vice president of communications Jacquee Wahler in a statement. “Until the values are corrected, we will continue to dispute the errors by the property appraiser as any property owner in Orange County would do.”

    “The disputes between Disney and Singh, who took office in 2013, have gone on for years, with more than 40 lawsuits still pending since 2016,” according to an Orlando Sentinel report.

    Disney paid about $24 million in property taxes in 2018 for the four theme parks, according to the tax collector’s office.

  • Disney Cancels Plans For Luxury Hotel in Anaheim After Feud With City

    Disney Cancels Plans For Luxury Hotel in Anaheim After Feud With City

    Walt Disney Co. has canceled its plans to create a four-diamond luxury hotel in the Disneyland Resort’s shopping district after tax incentives promised by Anaheim were taken off the table.

    On Wednesday, the company officially pulled the plug on the planned 700-room hotel. Construction on the project was supposed to start this summer and Disney had already cleared out many long time tenants of Downtown Disney to make room for the proposed resort.

    The project had been in limbo since August when the city told Disney that a shift in the location of the project meant it could no longer receive a promised $267 million tax incentive, according to the OC Register.

    “We’ve taken the time to review the economics of our proposed four-diamond hotel for Anaheim and have made the final decision to cancel the project,” spokeswoman Lisa Haines said in a statement.

    “While this is disappointing for many,” she said, “the conditions and agreements that stimulated this investment in Anaheim no longer exist and we must therefore adjust our long-term investment strategy.”

    Disney says it will instead focus on bringing back food and entertainment venues to the shuttered storefronts of that part of Downtown Disney.

    Anaheim Councilwoman Kris Murray says redeveloping Downtown Disney will be good for Anaheim’s economy, but the hotel would have been far better.

  • Why This Disney Heiress Wants You Mad

    Why This Disney Heiress Wants You Mad

    A tax bill passed recently and many people don’t really know what to make of it, but Abigail Disney, the granddaughter of Walt Disney Company co-founder Roy O. Disney says she understands it and it should make you mad.

    NowThis put out a video on Wednesday, where the heiress explains how she is expected to get a huge tax cut on income she did nothing to earn.

    “This bill will give me this tax cut while also killing health insurance for over 13 million people,” Disney said. “It will let me pass over $20 million to my children, tax-free. And all my friends with private jets? They get a tax cut too.”

    Disney fears that the idea of social mobility, that kids from a poor family can achieve the American dream — as her grandfather Roy and great-uncle Walt, did — is quickly becoming unrealistic.

    “But I will be able to stay comfortably right where I am,” she said. “Does that strike you as fair?”

    Disney also references President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to “drain the swamp.”

    “Given how this bill was written, I think it’s looking a lot like a nightmare from ‘Pirates of the Caribbean,’” she said. “Have I made you angry yet? I really hope I’ve made you angry. You should be. No one who votes for this tax bill will be voting with your life in mind. But you will pay for it.”

    Disney said she was motivated to speak out against the bill because of the desire to advocate for the public good, above self-interest.

    “If democracy is just a bunch of people advocating for their own self-interest instead of the interests of the greater good, then we’re not a democracy, we’re anarchy,” Disney said. “We need to start voting and acting as citizens as though the common good matters more than our own personal well-being.”