Disney Whistleblower Says Company Lied About Revenue, Dodges Taxes For Years

A whistleblower is accusing The Walt Disney Company of fudging its books as far back as 2008 to grossly inflate its revenues while also avoiding tax payments.

Disney employees working at the parks-and-resorts business segment systematically overstated revenue by billions of dollars by exploiting flaws in the company’s accounting software, alleges Sandra Kuba, who was formerly a senior financial analyst at the company’s revenue-operations department.

Her complaints allege Disney also avoided tax payments by reclassifying items such as food and hotel rooms. Disney also allegedly inflated sales figures by recording free rounds of golf and other complimentary items as being paid for by guests.

The extent of the financial manipulation was massive, alleges Kuba in her whistleblower filing. She said in the 2008-09 financial year, Disney’s annual revenue might have been overstated by as much as $6 billion, according to documents seen by MarketWatch.

The parks-and-resorts business segment reported total revenue of $10.6 billion in 2009, according to Disney’s annual report, making Kuba’s allegations serious.

A Disney employee for 18 years, Kuba filed four whistleblower and whistleblower-retaliation complaints against Disney with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) starting in 2017. She filed her latest whistleblower complains against Disney last June.

Disney fired her a month after she made her first whistleblower complaint with the SEC in August 2017.

Kuba’s complaint with the SEC also reveals the ways by which Disney employees fudged the company’s revenue. Among these illegal entries are recording fictitious revenue for complimentary golf rounds or for free guest promotions.

Kuba also claims employees sometimes recorded revenue twice for gift cards. In addition, revenue was recorded despite a gift card being given free to a guest after this guest filed a complaint. She said flaws in Disney’s accounting software made the manipulation difficult to trace.

Kuba said she first reported the alleged revenue-recognition issues to Disney management in 2013. She said no one responded to her at that time, according to MarketWatch.

A Disney spokesperson said the company has reviewed Kuba’s claims and found they were “utterly without merit.”