Walt Disney World is fighting back against Florida Lawmakers, claiming a provision would prevent the state from repealing their special tax district.
QUICK FACTS:
- Disney is claiming their special tax status, known as “The Reedy Creek Improvement Act,” because of the company’s outstanding $1 billion debt, Fox News reported.
- The resort complex’s governing board says that when Florida created the Reedy Creek Improvement District decades ago, the state pledged to protect the district’s debt holders, and not to alter its status unless all debts are paid off.
- The provision, signed in 1967, was written in response to lobbying efforts by Disney because the media conglomerate did not have the resources needed to develop their projects at the time. The Florida legislature worked with the company to establish the taxing district that allows them to act as their own county government.
FLORIDA GOV. ON THE LAW DISSOLVING DISNEY’S SPECIAL TAX STATUS:
“The first step in what’s going to be a process to make sure that Disney should not run its own government,” Ron DeSantis said.
BACKGROUND:
- Reedy Creek quoted a statute in a statement posted to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board last week, saying the state could not alter the rights of Disney until their debt is cleared.
- Florida “will not limit or alter the rights of the District… until all such bonds together with the interest thereon… are fully met and discharged,” the statement said. “In light of the State of Florida’s pledge to the District’s bondholders, Reedy Creek expects to explore its options while continuing its present operations, including levying and collecting its ad valorem taxes and collecting its utility revenues, paying debt service on its ad valorem tax bonds and utility revenue bonds, complying with its bond covenants and operating and maintaining its properties.”
