Over the past few days, our office has started seeing a concerning new trend out of Miami-Dade County. Caterers, along with other businesses holding a "13CT" Caterer license issued by Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), are receiving letters from the Miami-Dade County Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources (RER), Business Section ordering them to register for two new local tax accounts and to file back returns going all the way to July 2021.
If you have received one of these letters, it is not junk mail. The ten-day clock starts running the moment it lands.
What the Letter Says
The letter explains that Miami-Dade has cross-referenced DBPR's caterer licensing database and identified businesses that, in the County's view, do not have the correct Convention & Tourist Tax accounts established for catering activity. Because catered events can occur inside or outside hotel properties, and the applicable tax rates differ, the County is opening two new accounts for each affected business:
- Non-Hotel Catering at 1%
- Hotel Catering at 2%
The letter goes on to note that these accounts have already been added to the business's TouristExpress profile. From the County's perspective, you are now registered, whether you knew it or not.
The Five-Year Lookback
The most significant and most expensive paragraph of the letter is the one demanding that returns for July 2021 through the present must be filed immediately. That is nearly five years of monthly returns, all due on the 20th of each month, for accounts that in many cases the taxpayer did not know existed.
The County is also explicit that even if no catering revenue was earned in a given month, a return reporting $0 gross revenue must still be filed. Late filings will be subject to penalties and interest.
That cuts in two directions. For a caterer with active operations who has never separately tracked or remitted Miami-Dade's local Convention & Tourist Tax, the exposure can be substantial. For a business that holds a 13CT license but does little or no actual catering, filing zero return after zero return creates its own problem. A long string of $0 returns can read to the County as an invitation to look closer, not as a sign of compliance.
The $400,000 Exemption Buried in the Letter
There is one favorable provision worth knowing about. Under Section 29-51 of the Miami-Dade County Code, gross revenues reported under the 1% Non-Hotel Events account may be eligible for a $400,000 annual exemption. According to the letter, the RER Business Section's Compliance Team will conduct a Tax-Exempt Review upon receipt of the back returns to determine whether the exemption applies.
The word may is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Whether the exemption is ultimately granted will depend on the specific facts of how catering revenue was earned, where events occurred, and how the activity is characterized in the filings. Submitting five years of back returns without first thinking through how those numbers will read to the Compliance Team is a costly mistake we are already seeing taxpayers make.
Why This Is Happening Now
This appears to be a coordinated compliance sweep, with DBPR's licensing database serving as the trigger list. If you hold a 13CT license in Miami-Dade, you are on it. We expect the volume of letters going out over the coming weeks to be significant.
It also helps to understand the landscape. Miami-Dade is one of only a handful of Florida counties that self-administers its Convention & Tourist Tax. Most counties contract with the Florida Department of Revenue to handle local tourist tax collection. That means in Miami-Dade, the County controls the enforcement timeline, the audit posture, and the negotiation of any back-tax liability in-house. The process and the people involved are different from a typical state sales tax matter, and the issues that come up in these reviews are local-tax specific.
What to Do If You Receive One
A few practical points if one of these letters lands on your desk:
Do not ignore the ten-day window. Even if the merits of your position are strong, missing the registration deadline hands the County leverage it does not otherwise have.
Do not file blindly. Before you submit nearly five years of monthly returns, make sure you understand which periods had reportable catering activity, whether the $400,000 exemption is realistically in play, and how the numbers will be perceived by the Compliance Team. Once filed, returns are difficult to walk back.
Look at any overlap with state-level filings. Some caterers have been remitting tax through the Florida Department of Revenue. Whether and how that history offsets, complicates, or interacts with the new local liability is a fact-specific question that should be answered before any returns are filed with the County.
Be especially careful if your catering sales are minimal. A long string of $0 returns is not a neutral filing. There are more defensible ways to position an account where 13CT licensure exists but catering activity does not.
How We Can Help
We handle Florida state and local sales and use tax matters, including Miami-Dade's locally administered Convention & Tourist Tax, every day. If you have received one of these letters, or you hold a Florida caterer's license and expect to receive one, our team can review the notice, evaluate your exposure, and help you develop a plan before responding to the County.
About the author: Gerald “Jerry” Donnini II is a Shareholder of the Law Offices of Moffa, Sutton, & Donnini, PA. Mr. Donnini concentrates in the area of Florida and Federal tax matters, with a heavy emphasis on the tobacco, convenience store and petroleum industries . He also handles a myriad of multi-state state and local tax issues. Mr. Donnini is a co-author for CCH’s Expert Treatise Library: State Sales and Us Tax and writes extensively on multi-state tax issues for SalesTaxSupport.com. Mr. Donnini also regularly represents cigarette, beverage, and tobacco distributors against the Division of Alcohol and Tobacco in connection with refund claims and audit defense. While at Nova Southeastern University, Shepard Broad Law Center, Mr. Donnini was the Notes and Comments Editor of Nova Law Review and Vice President of the Sports and Entertainment Law Society. Prior to attending law school at Nova in 2008, Jerry was an accountant for National Retail Properties, Inc. To discuss your situation, contact our office at (954) 642-9390 or email JerryDonnini@FloridaSalesTax.com.
About the firm: At the Law Office of Moffa, Sutton, & Donnini, PA, our primary practice area is Florida taxes, with a very heavy emphasis in Florida sales and use tax. We have defended Florida businesses against the Florida Department of Revenue since 1991 and have over 100 years of cumulative sales tax experience within our firm. Our partners are both CPAs/Accountants and Attorneys, so we understand both the accounting side of the situation as well as the legal side. We even have former sales tax auditors on staff. We represent taxpayers and business owners from the entire state of Florida. Contact us for a FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION to confidentially discuss how we can help put this nightmare behind you.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
FL SALES TAX: PRE-PREPARED MEALS & CATERING, published April 2, 2026, by Michele Larringage, Esq.
RESTAURANT FLORIDA SALES TAX HANDBOOK, published January 4, 2018, by James Sutton, CPA, Esq.
FLORIDA SALES TAX ARREST – PALM BEACH PIZZERIA OWNER, published March 4, 2026, by James Sutton, CPA, Esq.
FLORIDA SALES TAX AUDIT PROCESS AND TRAPS, published March 4, 2023, by David Brennan, Esq.