Denise Yaniz, owner of Kendall restaurant Sushi2Mee, experienced a seismic jolt to her business six months ago. On top of tacking Florida’s 7 percent sales tax onto customers’ bills, Yaniz found out that she’s also supposed to be charging an additional 1 percent county sales tax that funds homeless and domestic violence services.
The tax, which has been on the books since the early 1990s, applies to any Miami-Dade County dining establishment that serves booze and grosses more than $400,000 a year. Yet, the tax’s existence was news to Yaniz, who began tacking on the additional levy to customers’ bills in December. She’s owned Sushi2Mee for nearly a decade.
“I never knew about this tax,” Yaniz told The Real Deal. “They told me it’s been in existence for [decades]. I was like, ‘And now is when you are going to start charging people for it?’”
Yaniz is not alone. Hundreds of restaurant owners across Miami-Dade are reeling after being hit with demand letters to cough up tens of thousands of dollars in 1 percent sales tax proceeds dating back three years. The Miami-Dade County Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources (RER) has mounted an aggressive collection campaign, notifying allegedly noncompliant restaurant owners that they are supposed to be charging and remitting the additional sales tax, even though many of them claim the levy was never on their radar.
The fallout has been swift: confusion, frustration, and a scramble to comply with a law that, while on the books since 1992, has only recently been enforced with vigor.
“It’s crazy,” Yaniz said. “It’s impacting a lot of people. But what are you going to do? You have to do what [the county tells] you. If not, it’s a headache.”
Retroactive enforcement causes panic
While Miami-Dade officials haven’t hit Yaniz with a tax bill, she had to submit bank statements and other financial records for the past three years to the RER department. “They told me they were going to do an analysis,” Yaniz said.
Dozens of Felix Bendersky’s clients have also received enforcement letters from RER in recent months informing them that they owe up to three years in back taxes, said Bendersky, who leads Miami-based F + B Hospitality, a brokerage that specializes in restaurants, bars and nightclubs. A few weeks ago, Bendersky sounded the alarm about the county’s enforcement efforts in a video he posted on F + B’s Instagram account.
“Nobody has known about it, and very few people have paid it,” Bendersky told TRD. “The county sent everybody three years worth of bills and told them you have 30 days to figure this out. Restaurant owners are in panic mode.”
The restaurant industry was already experiencing upheaval as a result of an anemic winter season, the impact of Trump tariffs and code enforcement crackdowns, Bendersky said. Some establishments may not survive the slow summer months, especially if owners have to cough up five-to-six-figure sums in back taxes, Bendersky added.
Landlords could also suffer, as the county is threatening to assess liens against properties leased to restaurants that don’t comply with the 1 percent tax, Bendersky warned.
“A lot of restaurant owners are going to say, ‘We are done,’” he said. “The county is cleaning out all mom-and-pop restaurants.”
The RER department has sent enforcement letters to 813 restaurants since Jan. 1, county spokesperson Monique Spence told TRD. However, RER could not provide a total amount owed, she said.
“We do not know what monies are owed, nor can we accurately estimate how much could be owed, until a business creates an account with us and our staff performs an audit,” Spence said via email. “Every business has its own unique financial circumstances, which is why each is handled on a case-by-case basis.”
In October, RER took over enforcement of the tax from the Miami-Dade Tax Collector’s Office, Spence explained. She insisted that RER is working with restaurant owners who were not charging the tax “to ensure compliance in a fair and supportive way.”
“Each case requires an audit to determine liability,” Spence said. “A broad marketing campaign is not the most effective approach. Instead, RER has directly reached out to every business with [an alcohol] license to offer assistance and encourage compliance.”
The county has not levied any fines and is offering some financial relief, including waiving some of the back taxes owed, Spence said.
“One recent case involved a restaurant owner whose liability was reduced by 85 percent from $134,570 to $20,413,” Spence said. “Payment plans are also available for businesses needing more time to pay.”
Disconnect between county and state
The dilemma is the result of a disconnect between state licensing agencies and the county tax enforcement offices. When restaurants obtain a license to sell alcohol, the county is not automatically notified so it can send out tax bills. As a result, many restaurant owners operated for years without collecting or remitting the tax, only to be confronted with large retroactive bills once Miami-Dade ramped up enforcement.
With profit margins already thin in the restaurant industry, unexpected tax bills — especially retroactive ones — can be devastating, Bendersky said.
“You have restaurants that are super pissed,” he said. “A ton of restaurants have contacted me about what they can do.”
Yaniz, Sushi2Mee’s owner, concurred. “Even my accountant said he had never seen this happening with [non-restaurant] businesses,” she said. “But you can’t fight with [the county]. You will lose no matter what.”
