If you parked in Miami, you could qualify for refund on city’s tax, lawsuit says

If you parked your car in Miami and paid the city’s 15% tax each time, you may qualify for a refund — perhaps hundreds of dollars or just a few bucks or even nickels and dimes, depending on your situation.

It all hinges on the outcome of a new class-action case claiming the city’s parking surcharge is “illegal” under state law. The class, which potentially represents tens of thousands of workers, residents and visitors who paid to park their vehicles in Miami, is seeking to recover about $55 million in city parking taxes levied over the past three years.

The class-action case was filed Tuesday, so it is in the early stages. A Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge would have to approve the class and then both sides would have to battle in court before a refund becomes possible. But if the class ultimately wins — either by trial or by settlement — there are various ways that you would be able to qualify for a refund from the city of Miami.

READ MORE: City of Miami is sued over parking tax. Potential liability could exceed $50 million

Lawyers representing the class said that the city’s parking facility operators are required to keep receipts and records of all transactions in their private and public garages and lots. At the same time, the vast majority of people who incurred the parking tax would be able to show they paid it with statements of their credit or debit card transactions or possibly receipts. The minority of people who paid cash for parking could also qualify for a refund under some plan, including providing a sworn statement, the lawyers said.

Attorney Rachel Furst, who filed the lawsuit with lawyers Alex Arteaga-Gomez and Stuart Grossman, said the case is perfect for “class treatment” because it would be impractical for individuals to sue for parking-tax refunds. Furst said the parking-tax suit is similar to a consumer class-action case involving a defective product, a common way of resolving claims involving thousands if not millions of people.

“We’d like to take this case one step at a time,” Furst said. “If the city’s parking tax is found to be unconstitutional, then we will eventually find a way to compensate everyone who parked in Miami and paid the tax.”

Furst, whose law firm was a major player in the $1.1 billion settlement reached in the Surfside condo-collapse class-action case this year, said it would be customary to create a website with a link for affected consumers to fill out a claims form with proof of paying the city’s parking tax and a sworn statement. She said her firm could also correlate those claims with parking facility operators’ records of transactions in Miami, as well as with the city’s records. The parking tax program is run by a private contractor.

The three representatives of the class — Sara Wolfe, Josh Kaiser and Richard Klugh — regularly paid for parking in garages and lots in the downtown area, including Brickell Avenue, as well as in the Coconut Grove, Wynwood and Midtown neighborhoods, according to their suit.

“In paying the rate to park in these various garages and lots, 15% of the amount paid was remitted to the City as the Parking Tax,” the suit says. “The City’s governing authority has illegally imposed and collected the unlawful Parking Tax” between 2019 and 2022, a three-year period that generated about $55 million in revenue for Miami.

City officials declined to comment about the new suit or its allegations.

The class representatives say the city’s parking tax is illegal for this reason:

For years, the city has been allowed to levy the parking tax on all transactions at garages, lots and other facilities to boost its finances, thanks to Florida law and a city referendum dating to 2003. But large Florida cities such as Miami can only impose the parking tax to supplement revenue as long as more than 20% of their real property is tax exempt.

The new suit, citing public records filed with the state Department of Revenue, claims Miami officials began violating that critical provision in 2017 when the city’s tax-exempt share of property owned by schools, churches and homesteaded residents fell below that threshold. Since then, due to exploding construction, new taxable properties and rising real estate values, Miami’s tax-exempt status has dropped further.