The Florida lawmaker who sponsored the legislation yanking special tax privileges for the Walt Disney Company in the state now says that with the return of former Disney chief Robert Iger, it may be possible to negotiate another tax deal similar to the Reedy Creek Improvement District that exempted Disney from numerous regulations and various taxes and fees for 50 years.
“It’s more likely we have a better partner to work with now,” state Rep. Randy Fine said. Mr. Fine thinks that Iger won’t get tangled up in state politics as much as his predecessor Bob Chapek, whose emphasis on creating “woke” content as well as his stand against the Parental Rights in Education Law — derisively referred to by the left as the “don’t say gay” bill — made him many enemies on the right.
Iger’s emphasis on “creativity” and “profitability” is music to the ears of Disney stockholders, who have endured $8 billion in losses for the Disney+ streaming service and flops at the box office like the most recent Strange World, which had the second-worst opening weekend in Disney history.
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It’s an open question whether the state would have followed through on the legislation and yanked Disney’s special tax privileges. It would have been very complicated and probably raised taxes on a sizable number of Florida residents.
Disney, as the primary landowner at Reedy Creek, has provided most of the revenue from taxes and fees that the district has collected. That money covers all the district’s governing expenses and is used to service the long-term bond debt that Reedy Creek has issued over the years. Dissolving the district could be a complicated process and trigger legal battles, according to analysts.
Jeff Brandes, a former senator from the Tampa Bay area who worked closely with both Mr. DeSantis’s office and Disney’s Florida government affairs staff until the recent conclusion of his term, said that the dispute over Reedy Creek was “Kabuki theater” from the very start. He said Republicans in the legislature have long expected Disney and the governor’s office to work out a deal to avoid raising taxes on residents of the counties surrounding Walt Disney World and avoid a default on the roughly $1 billion in outstanding bonds issued by Reedy Creek.
Indeed, Governor Ron DeSantis is already looking to make a new deal now that Iger is back in charge. “I think Mr. Iger has already said it probably was a misstep on the company’s part and how they handled it,” Fine said in an interview. “I don’t think we’d be in this situation if Bob Iger had been CEO.”
One goal would be to ensure that Disney would be responsible for paying back the nearly $1 billion in municipal bonds issued by the special district, DeSantis has said. “We will have an even playing field for businesses in Florida, and the state certainly owes no special favors to one company,” Griffin said. “Disney’s debts will not fall on the taxpayers of Florida.”
A Disney spokesperson declined comment. In a recent hall meeting with Disney employees, Iger, said: “Do I like the company being embroiled in controversy? Of course not.”
“It can be distracting and have a negative impact on the company. To the extent I can quiet things down, I’m going to do that,” he said, adding that he’s still getting “up to speed” on the situation with Reedy Creek and that he doesn’t have all the details about the ramifications of Florida’s decision.
So Disney will get some of its tax breaks back and has been put on notice — as other companies in Florida have been — that there’s a limit to how far you can go against the mainstream.
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