Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 843 posts

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#231

Post by phkahler »

burkaman wrote: post #220
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong. It's not insider trading. Lutnick didn't have inside information. His son just had a brain. Anyone who read the case knew which way the court was going, it was the least surprising decision ever. Perhaps the only surprising thing is that the court ever heard it.

He presumably did not have access to the court's opinion before it was released, but he did have access to internal White House legal opinions before the tariffs were announced ("Mr. President this is illegal and very likely to be overturned by the courts"), and he obviously had access to the entire federal legal team during the court cases. I can't prove that there was any White House advisory memo before the tariff…

So a Whitehouse insider is going to get a bunch of tarrif refund money?

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#232

Post by danielmarkbruce »

burkaman wrote: post #220
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong. It's not insider trading. Lutnick didn't have inside information. His son just had a brain. Anyone who read the case knew which way the court was going, it was the least surprising decision ever. Perhaps the only surprising thing is that the court ever heard it.

He presumably did not have access to the court's opinion before it was released, but he did have access to internal White House legal opinions before the tariffs were announced ("Mr. President this is illegal and very likely to be overturned by the courts"), and he obviously had access to the entire federal legal team during the court cases. I can't prove that there was any White House advisory memo before the tariff…

White House legal opinions aren't any better than other legal opinions. Opinions are not "information".

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#233

Post by rayiner »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #201
cj wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> dumb, or morally bad This is easy to say in hindsight. There was a non-zero chance the decision could have went the other way. Also, companies aren't stupid. They don't buy insurance against things that are impossible. And the supreme court doesn't hear cases that are 100% obviously illegal.

It was non-zero but close to zero. Companies don't want to deal with the headache for many things. It's not a given over what time horizon and how much work is involved to get the refund. It's totally sensible to sell the claim for 70 cents on the dollar for example. The supreme court absolutely hears cases that are obvious. They do it for several reasons - to create clarity, to narrow scope, to set a very clear prec…

It wasn’t “close to zero.” The Supreme Court split 6-3, with two Trump appointees voting against him. And the Federal Circuit, which is the most boring appellate court and not political at all, split 7-4, with two democratic appointees and two republican appointees voting to uphold the tariffs.

This was a case that split both the liberal and conservative blocs. Obama’s former SG, Neal Katyal, went up there and argued for limiting presidential power over the economy. One of the justices quipped about the irony of Katyal’s major contribution to jurisprudence being revitalization of non-delegation doctrine, which has always been a conservative focus.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#234

Post by zoobab »

mgkimsal wrote: post #194

One thing I don't see mentioned enough with the whole "the consumers paid these tariffs! we should get refunds!"... We "paid" not just in higher prices, but in many layoffs, reduction in working hours, skipped bonuses and raises. Companies that get 'refunds' will have an opportunity to use that money to rehire and repay workers. I'm cynical enough to think that will happen in large measures across the whole country,…

"use that money to rehire and repay workers"

or give it to shareholders.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#236

Post by gruez »

burkaman wrote: post #220
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong. It's not insider trading. Lutnick didn't have inside information. His son just had a brain. Anyone who read the case knew which way the court was going, it was the least surprising decision ever. Perhaps the only surprising thing is that the court ever heard it.

He presumably did not have access to the court's opinion before it was released, but he did have access to internal White House legal opinions before the tariffs were announced ("Mr. President this is illegal and very likely to be overturned by the courts"), and he obviously had access to the entire federal legal team during the court cases. I can't prove that there was any White House advisory memo before the tariff…

>I can't prove that there was any White House advisory memo before the tariffs were announced, but hypothetically, would this not be considered material nonpublic information?

Was the hypothetical "White House advisory memo" produced using any proprietary information? If not, why should it be any different than if I hired a bunch of top lawyers to produce a private report for me?

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#237

Post by giancarlostoro »

andyfilms1 wrote: post #81
mothballed wrote: post #4

... refunded to the importer of record. Not the people the costs were passed to. Essentially turning it retroactively into a tax to private businesses. This is the worst case of all scenarios for the consumer.

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 e…

> 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?

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#238

Post by coldpie »

magicalhippo wrote: post #209
coldpie wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The government knows exactly who paid what in duties No, they have a record of who handed the money over to the government. This does not tell you who paid the duties. There's going to be a whole lot of Trump toadies & business owners in the chain, siphoning cash from refunds before they work their way back to the people who actually paid them. And that's not even getting into the open corruption & fraud that will…

> No, they have a record of who handed the money over to the government. This does not tell you who paid the duties. The entity that handed over the money to the government is the entity that paid the duties, and is the one the government must refund. If an entity has passed those costs on does not change that, and does not turn the 130B into a slush fund. However I agree that consumers will be likely be royally scre…

If the government charges the importer $20 and the importer charges me $20, then I am in effect the one who paid the duty. If the refund goes to the importer, and it does not come back to me, then the government and the importer have colluded to rob me of $20. This isn't an accident, the owners of the import companies who will benefit from this theft were almost certainly all Trump supporters.

In reality, half of the funds will go to that. Maybe even some tiny portion of it will genuinely make its way back to the people who actually paid the duties. This is the fig leaf to which I referred. The other half will go to Trump toadies in the form of "mistakes," fraud, corruption, skimming, unclaimed funds, etc. This is the slush fund to which I referred.

In the end, all of it is going to Trump toadies. It's a $130B transfer of wealth to Trump's financial backers.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#239

Post by [deleted] »

spamizbad wrote: post #145
petcat wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it insider trading to bet on a Supreme Court verdict? It's not like it was a slam dunk. The decision was 6-3.

You don't need a crystal ball to understand a conservative supreme court would require the government to refund what amounts to an illegal tax on American businesses. If you stick your hand into a fire you don't need to speculate as to whether you'll get burned.

[deleted]

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#240

Post by wpm »

cvoss wrote: post #174
throwaway667555 wrote: post #92

I'm gonna have a stroke. The Congressional Budget Office found that consumers paid 70-80% of the tariffs, totaling more than $1000 per household. Where is my refund?

You did not pay the tariffs. You bore the cost of the tariffs. Those are not the same thing. The refund is due to the party that got the bill for the tariff and paid it-- the importer. What you paid for was for the business not to go bankrupt while this was occurring. If the business wants to refund you for that, they can choose to do so. But you are not owed a refund.

Look you can write the funny numbers in whatever accounting mumbo jumbo you want, but I paid more to cover the cost to the supplier == I paid the tariffs.
Post reply on HN