Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by Larrikin » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

mhb wrote: post #28

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.

Since the cost was probably split between reduced profit and additional customer cost, it seems pretty impractical to determine who is due a refund - end users or businesses. Or the logistics of refunds to customers. One possibility would be for businesses to return the fraction of the tariff paid by customers to future customers by offering the items affected with a negative tax until the refund is used up.

Making people spend more money to "save" money is just a sale to increase profits even more.

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

#52

Post by dcveloper » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

llm_nerd wrote: post #37

dcveloper wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a smart play for a flat tax. Baseline at 15-20% on imports (proxy for flat tax on income). Then push to eliminate income tax. It's very much aligned with conservative view points on income tax and it's progressive nature.

[flagged]

You're ranting.

Many governments, at least the ones that matter, are bankrupt. Quick google shows all G8 countries run a deficit.

My "smart play" wasn't on the merits of idea, largely the game theory aspect of moving forward to their policy goals after decades of having no traction. It's a unique idea, policy wise. Don't know if it will be effective. Neither do you.

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

#53

Post by petcat » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #30

Cantor Fitzgerald, formerly led by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and is now run by his son, went to various companies that were affected by tariffs and bought the rights to their potential tariff refunds for 20% of the value on the expectation that it'd be struck down by the courts. Now they stand to make huge returns of 3 to 5x for being correct on that bet, while, of course, consumers get nothing. Now if this i…

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.

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

#54

Post by gruez » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #30

Cantor Fitzgerald, formerly led by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and is now run by his son, went to various companies that were affected by tariffs and bought the rights to their potential tariff refunds for 20% of the value on the expectation that it'd be struck down by the courts. Now they stand to make huge returns of 3 to 5x for being correct on that bet, while, of course, consumers get nothing. Now if this i…

>Now they stand to make huge returns of 3 to 5x for being correct on that bet

...assuming they held those rights on their books, rather than selling it off to other hedge funds.

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

#55

Post by libertine » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

just-working wrote: post #12

hypeatei wrote: post #7

[flagged]

It's really more complicated than this. Onshoring manufacturing is something that has to be incentivized and that has positive externalities outside of dollars and cents. But some tariffs were really dumb, like on bananas. We can't grow bananas here...

Tariffs aren't incentives, the whole thing is upsidedown.

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

#56

Post by mattas » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

I wonder if brands will have a "tariff refund" sale. Make everything 20% off until all of the brand's tariff refund is passed on to customers. Of course, this wouldn't help the customers that already paid the tariff but it could be a good marketing ploy.

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

#57

Post by ModernMech » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

chuckadams wrote: post #14

hypeatei wrote: post #7

[flagged]

You could point out the inconsistency, but I really think the cognitive dissonance of constant and pervasive hypocrisy is the point . Truth is whatever the party tells you today, and we have always been at war with EastAsia.

> we have always been at war with EastAsia

Isn’t the new line that we’ve been at war with Iran for 47 years?

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

#58

Post by energy123 » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #30

Cantor Fitzgerald, formerly led by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and is now run by his son, went to various companies that were affected by tariffs and bought the rights to their potential tariff refunds for 20% of the value on the expectation that it'd be struck down by the courts. Now they stand to make huge returns of 3 to 5x for being correct on that bet, while, of course, consumers get nothing. Now if this i…

For it to be insider trading, he would have had to have access to private information from the Supreme Court, which seems unlikely.

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

#59

Post by Ajedi32 » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

bhouston wrote: post #47

sillysaurusx wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s smart though. If you don’t want to lose your rights to tariff refunds, don’t sell them. Would the alternative be to forbid companies from selling those rights in this case? As for whether consumers should get anything, I’m sympathetic. It’s a matter of implementation though. How would you refund so many people? You’d have to quantify how much overhead they’ve paid in tariffs, and that seems like an IRS-scale j…

> That’s smart though. If you don’t want to lose your rights to tariff refunds, don’t sell them. Would the alternative be to forbid companies from selling those rights in this case? Definitely smart, but also sure looks like an insider play / corruption / self-dealing.

The commerce secretary has no control over what the Supreme Court does. Anyone could have read the law and decided whether they thought the tariffs were legal or not.

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

#60

Post by NickC25 » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #30

Cantor Fitzgerald, formerly led by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and is now run by his son, went to various companies that were affected by tariffs and bought the rights to their potential tariff refunds for 20% of the value on the expectation that it'd be struck down by the courts. Now they stand to make huge returns of 3 to 5x for being correct on that bet, while, of course, consumers get nothing. Now if this i…

You forgot to mention that Mr. Lutnik is also a close personal friend of a pedophile-turned-Mossad-agent-turned-pedophile named Jeffrey Epstein and visited his island. Mr. Lutnik deliberately and purposefully lied to congress about it, and faced no charges for lying to congress.

In a just world, someone like that would be jailed indefinitely and made to publicly take stand about his activities, and called out to his face during depositions about his lies.