The Danish tax authority accused a Florida homeowner of skirting payments on a fraud settlement by funneling assets into a homestead-exempted Palm Beach townhouse.
A web of lawsuits in federal court allege Luke McGee put $30 million into buying the townhome at 470 South Ocean Boulevard, shortly after he was ordered to pay a $164 million judgement in a separate case. That case, settled in New York court last year, found McGee and two others owed the Danish government money following a tax fraud case.
The tax authority, Skatteforvaltningen or “Skat,” is suing the trust and trustee who own McGee’s townhouse, seeking to overturn the exemption and place a lien on the home. The trust denies using the exemption to shield assets, or using improper funds to buy the house in the first place. Lawyers from both parties declined to comment.
It’s a familiar story in the Sunshine State, where buyers can protect their assets from creditors or legal claims by filing for a homestead exemption. The law lowers property taxes on a residence and prevents outside creditors from claiming the home to pay a debt.
The 470 South Ocean Boulevard Trust, through trustee and attorney Jonathan Gopman, paid $29.6 million for the Frisbie Group-developed townhouse in 2021. It was homesteaded this year in the names of McGee and his wife, Gabrielle McGee. Their family lives in the home, according to court records.
Skat sued McGee and two others over what the agency claimed was a $2.1 billion scheme throughout the 2010s that claimed refunds on taxes withheld from stock dividends. The parties settled that case in 2019, with McGee and co-conspirators ordered to repay the money they pocketed from the scheme.
Then in 2021, the Danish government indicted the three men on fraud charges. McGee, then CEO of Pennsylvania-based medical-equipment company AdaptHealth Corp, was forced out of the company.
Shortly after, the two other men stopped paying the original settlement, according to a news release about the case, saying Skat breached their contract. Skat then sued all three for the remainder of the settlement. A judge last year sided with the Danish agency and ordered the $164 million be repaid.
The Florida lawsuit alleges that McGee, through the land trust, used the state’s homestead exemption to shield his assets “with the intent to hinder, delay or defraud Skat of funds owed.” The Danish agency argues that the Palm Beach townhome shouldn’t qualify for a homestead exemption because it was allegedly purchased using money made during fraudulent dealings.
But the trust said in court filings that McGee didn’t purchase the house to shield assets, and that the house wasn’t purchased using dirty money. McGee thought he was free from the fraud case following the 2019 settlement, and he wasn’t aware of Denmark’s criminal investigation until June 2020, according to the filings.
Though the conflict spans several related lawsuits, Skat’s central homestead case is set to go to trial in May.
Florida voters will consider raising the state’s homestead exemption in the Nov. 3 election. If approved, Amendment 3 would raise the $50,000 homestead exemption on primary residences to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, which experts say would cause seismic shifts in real estate and local government funding.
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