Disney property-tax refunds total nearly $8 million, but the company may get a million more
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The Walt Disney Co. will receive a tax refund of nearly $8 million from the settlement of its drawn-out legal battle over appraisals of its theme parks by former Orange County Property Appraiser Rick Singh, according to Tax Collector Scott Randolph’s calculations for tax years 2015 through 2019.
Randolph said his office has not yet calculated the refund Disney will be due for tax year 2020 but it will likely be more than $1 million, too.
The company sued in June 2016, alleging Singh’s staff had exaggerated the fair market value of 14 Disney theme park properties, which include the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom and smaller venues such as Blizzard Beach, Typhoon Lagoon and Fantasia Golf.
The settlement, negotiated in the spring by Singh’s successor, Amy Mercado, was approved this month by Circuit Judge Kevin Weiss.
Property taxes, a major source of revenue for governments and school districts, are based on assessed values set by the appraiser’s office.
Disney was levied $296.2 million in property taxes for its theme parks in tax years 2015 through 2020, all of which the company disputed.
It will get a refund of $7.8 million for tax years 2015 through 2019, an average of about $1.56 million a year.
Randolph said taxing authorities who levied taxes on the theme parks won’t have to cut a check out of their budgets to repay Disney. These include Orange County Public Schools, Orange County government and the Orange County library system.
Because of growing liability in dozens of pending property-tax lawsuits filed against Singh while he was the property appraiser, Randolph withheld some property-tax revenues from bigger taxing authorities and put the money in reserve — in case Singh lost or settled on lower values.
“We have determined that we held enough back from prior years’ property taxes that we will be able to cover these refunds without having to actually ask the taxing authorities for additional funds,” Randolph said in an email to the Orlando Sentinel and a Florida Politics reporter.
Refunds are owed because state law requires a taxpayer challenging an assessment to pay the tax bill in dispute.
Randolph’s office determined Disney had overpaid the state of Florida for education property taxes a total of $2.8 million from 2015 through 2019. The company also overpaid assessments by Orange County schools by $2.1 million and Orange County government by $1.8 million over the same period.
Disney will get smaller refunds for property taxes it paid to Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, the county library system and the South Florida Water Management District.
Singh, who sparred with Disney during his two terms as the elected appraiser, often defended his office’s work and accused Disney officials of working secretly with a South Florida-based political action committee to send attack-ad mailers last year to Democratic voters to oust him from office.
The first Puerto Rican and first woman to hold the office, Mercado won the job by easily defeating Singh in the August primary.
