Abigail Disney: Government Taking
on Friday, July 16, 2021Abigail Disney Money Quote saying the Disney family trusts were structured to keep the government from taking any of the funds. Abigail Disney said:
“My grandfather Roy O. Disney, who co-founded the Walt Disney Company with his brother Walt, was a fervent believer in this idea. He was so determined to prevent the government from taking any of the money he wanted to leave to his family that he created generation-skipping trusts to end-run the IRS. What he did back then was so effective that most of it is illegal today” — Abigail Disney
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In this quote, Abigail Disney seems to be reflecting on her grandfather Roy Disney’s motivations for establishing complex family trusts to pass down wealth between generations. Specifically:
- She notes Roy Disney was a “fervent believer” in preventing the government from collecting inheritance or estate taxes on money he wanted to leave to subsequent family members.
- Disney relays that her grandfather created “generation-skipping trusts” as a legal strategy to circumvent paying taxes to the IRS upon his death and each following generation.
- She states these trusts were so effective that Congress later made many of the loophole techniques Roy Disney employed through trusts illegal going forward.
The best interpretation is that Disney is conveying her grandfather’s strong determination to ensure his accumulated wealth was fully inherited by descendants private of any public claims to it through taxation, to such an extent that he utilized trust structures now disallowed precisely because they eliminated intergenerational taxes too successfully according to Disney’s perspective on Roy Disney’s motivations for establishing such trusts as a means of tax avoidance and preservation of family assets across generations according to the laws and norms of his time.