Miami-Dade County has backed off its fight to collect property taxes on a famous Miami Beach house boat.
The property appraiser’s office on Thursday agreed to drop its effort to declare the Arkup #1, a gleaming rectangle-shaped house boat anchored off Miami Beach’s exclusive Star Island, a “floating structure.” That means the boat’s owner won’t have to shell out a tax bill of nearly $120,000.
The decision was made five months after Macknight International, owned by British-born businessman Jonathan Brown, sued the county over the tax bill, which lawyers said violated the Florida Constitution’s ban on property taxes on vessels.
