Walt Disney Co. continues to face fallout from its scuttled plans to move 2,000 California employees to a proposed Florida campus — a controversial decision the company reversed last year following the return of Chief Executive Bob Iger.
In 2021, then-CEO Bob Chapek and parks and experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaroannounced plans to relocate employees supporting Disney theme parks and resorts — including the celebrated Imagineers — to a planned $1-billion office park in the Lake Nona area of Orlando, Fla. The move was designed for Disney to take advantage of Florida tax credits, but the cross-country shift was deeply unpopular among employees who were asked to uproot their lives in Southern California.
Now some Disney employees are suing the company over the canceled relocation.
According to a lawsuit filed Tuesday against Disney in Los Angeles County Superior Court, numerous workers heeded the company’s calls, dutifully sold their homes in the Los Angeles area and moved to Central Florida.
In my limited understanding of California property taxes, I believe property values are only reassessed on the sale of the property, so if he was living in a house deeded to him by his parents, he might have been paying taxes on a decades-old appraisal. So even if they bought his exact house back for him, he’d still be stuck with significantly higher taxes, which he’d have to fight to be compensated for as well.