> ... I'm not paid by Disney, ...

The IRS have a completely different point of view.

They really don’t though.

“Hey, we’ll give you a free stay if you promote our hotel!” is compensatory.

“Hey, we’ll give you a free stay” isn’t obviously so.

But no company would simply give away free stays. That would cost them with no benefit.

There is a clear if unstated expectation that they will receive positive reviews and promotion as a result.

It will be marked as an expense outgoing to a third party by Disney, and the third party will be named or identified. That third party if did not account for that income and get audited, will be provided a demand letter. Vast majority of the "audits" are fully automated using cross referencing expenses & deductions to incomes.

There is no such thing as "free" when it comes to the US IRS.

None of this means that you have to pay taxes.

But yeah, you're right. If you get audited, you might have to explain to the IRS that this is not compensatory income.

> The IRS have a completely different point of view.

Oh, I fully agree and I would bet a majority of them know that as well, they just have figured out a way to use some weasel words to act like it's not a payment to the general public.

It's because there is no exchange, if I give you a birthday gift can that be considered income? Obviously not as I am not asking for something in return.

However:

If I buy you a gift and we agree for the gift you do task x for me. Now that is income and the value of the gift must be considered income on your tax return.

Disney isn't saying "here is a room for free if you do x, y , z"

Disney is saying "here is a room for free" and that is the end of it.

Of course the obvious issue for Disney is that the influencer might never do the review of the park and never in a million years could Disney take them to court complaining services were not rendered.

You cannot give a gift with expectation of return.

So it's not income.

But it's limited because the one giving you the gift really has to trust that you'll do the thing you do.

I am surprised Disney would bother to be honest. I thought their theme parks were popular enough already.

Why does Coke pay for advertising?

> I am surprised Disney would bother to be honest. I thought their theme parks were popular enough already.

They want to keep being popular ;). Same as the coke comment above me

> It's because there is no exchange, if I give you a birthday gift can that be considered income? Obviously not as I am not asking for something in return.

> However:

> If I buy you a gift and we agree for the gift you do task x for me. Now that is income and the value of the gift must be considered income on your tax return.

Caveat donor! The hand of the taxman extends somewhat further than laid out here.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe... :)

In Denmark, gifts beyond a certain amount are taxable.

The USA has similar rules.

https://skat.dk/taxrates

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

Aw man, did the Star Wars hotel shut down already? I was hoping it would stick around until the check cleared for my kidney so I could take my family.

> Aw man, did the Star Wars hotel shut down already? I was hoping it would stick around until the check cleared for my kidney so I could take my family.

Nah, but you can book it for literally 2 days for now, which is somewhat unheard of for something like it, especially with the Disney and Star Wars name attached.

> Most of them don't get 'paid' by Disney in a traditional sense, but will get things like exclusive access to press events/rides, free upcoming products, or in the case with that flop of a star wars hotel a "free $7,000 hotel stay."

>All of which lets them technically say "I'm not paid by Disney, they just gave me this to show all of you!"

So they literally are not receiving any meaningful payments from Disney. A “$7000 hotel stay” you can’t even resell is worth very little compared to $ in bank.

Also, you forgot about Club 33. Those folks sometimes get better treatment than the regular passholes.

> So they literally are not receiving any meaningful payments from Disney. A “$7000 hotel stay” you can’t even resell is worth very little compared to $ in bank.

Except it's $7k that they most likely would have spent themselves as a business expense to try and get money from their streams. It's still Disney paying them, just in an alternate way.

It's why YouTube, Amazon and others require you to disclose that you got the item for free, because that can significantly alter your view and is basically turning you into an ad.

How many "normal" people would spend $7k for a 2 day hotel stay where you basically are stuck in someone else's itinerary? Hint, not enough to fill out 100 rooms consistently, even within 2 days. But it was all "OMG THIS IS AWESOME YOU HAVE TO DO IT" from the 'influencers.'

>Also, you forgot about Club 33. Those folks sometimes get better treatment than the regular passholes.

Oops, yep. Forgot the $100k Disney club. Plus the timeshare suckers.

> Except it's $7k that they most likely would have spent themselves as a business expense to try and get money from their streams. It's still Disney paying them, just in an alternate way.

So and so. Here’s an exaggerated example: Disney likes your consistent shilling and grants you a Club 33 membership valued in many tens of thousands.

Even as a big Disney influencer there’s a very good chance you’d never have paid for this.

From a legal POV whether or not something like this is compensation isn’t clear, it’s highly dependent on the specific details. An influencer absolutely can legally receive gifts from Disney knowing that they’re almost certainly hoping for those gifts to pop up on that influencers feed.

Most of the influencers I saw talking about that Star Wars hotel when it opened were basically shitting on it. I felt like their reviews were pretty unbiased.

> It's why YouTube, Amazon and others require you to disclose that you got the item for free, because that can significantly alter your view and is basically turning you into an ad.

I always assumed that was a legal requirement. Isn’t it technically classed as fraud (or something?) to not disclose that you were sponsored by the resort?

Obviously this will vary by jurisdiction, but it's a relatively new problem in all of them. (At least, the format is new and it hasn't been obvious if/how the old rules apply.)

In the UK for example the advertising regulator decided it's advertising, kind of like a 'product placement' on television, and therefore needs to be clearly so/declared.