Judge Orders Government to Begin Refunding More Than $130B in Tariffs

Re:Judge Orders Government to Begin Refunding More Than $130... by andyfilms1 on Thursday March 05, 2026 @09:50AM (#47262166)

I understand the frustration but I don't understand the logic. The businesses who paid the tariffs (who were literally sent an invoice that they paid) should be the ones refunded.

How would the government even be able to determine if a business increased product prices due to tariffs vs other factors, or even if the business increased prices at all? What if the product is a loss leader and the company was fine just eating the expense? Or what about a nefarious company who manufacturers their stuff in Canada but used "tariffs" as an excuse to increase prices? What would they be refunded from?

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Re:Judge Orders Government to Begin Refunding More Than $130... by coldpie on Thursday March 05, 2026 @09:55AM (#47262242)

Yes, you're almost there, just go one step further. Now you've got a big pile of money and no clear rules on where it should go. Who gets to decide where it will go? Given how this administration operates, where do you think it will go?

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Re:Judge Orders Government to Begin Refunding More Than $130... by giancarlostoro on Thursday March 05, 2026 @10:35AM (#47262834)

> I understand the frustration but I don't understand the logic. The businesses who paid the tariffs (who were literally sent an invoice that they paid) should be the ones refunded.

So if I'm the owner of Uncle Billy Bobs Autoparts and I ship from Madeupcountry. I billed you $500 extra for some new car part. The US government refunds me on the tariffs they charged me to import my product to you, and now your taxes is going into my refund. Who wins in this scenario? They're effectively giving every country a free bonus. I wouldn't be surprised if some people got scammed by the tariffs by being overcharged.

There's no serious paper trail to any of this to meaningfully return lost revenue to the American consumer, I would rather not waste tax dollars on refunds.

I guess the only "winners" are maybe businesses that didn't pass on the revenue loss on to the consumer? But how do you even correctly refund those businesses?

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Re:Judge Orders Government to Begin Refunding More Than $130... by philipallstar on Thursday March 05, 2026 @10:41AM (#47262918)

You just refund the people who pay the tariffs. You can't do any more than that.

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Re:Judge Orders Government to Begin Refunding More Than $130... by giancarlostoro on Thursday March 05, 2026 @10:48AM (#47263027)

I'm okay with that, though I don't think most of my receipts highlight how much went into a tariff. Maybe for very specific purchases it did, but for most things I've bought over the past year there's no real way to gauge this.

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Re:Judge Orders Government to Begin Refunding More Than $130... by philipallstar on Thursday March 05, 2026 @01:01PM (#47264970)

Agreed; only the edge importer can be refunded by the government. Hopefully those businesses pass on the refund, but that's up to them.

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Re:Judge Orders Government to Begin Refunding More Than $130... by SJC_Hacker on Thursday March 05, 2026 @12:29PM (#47264557)

> How would the government even be able to determine if a business increased product prices due to tariffs vs other factors, or even if the business increased prices at all? What if the product is a loss leader and the company was fine just eating the expense? Or what about a nefarious company who manufacturers their stuff in Canada but used "tariffs" as an excuse to increase prices? What would they be refunded from?

Gee, I don't know, receipts ?

Also simply revenue on the business end

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