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

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

#551

Post by benrutter »

downrightmike wrote: post #156
benrutter wrote: post #119

Lots of comments along the lines that tarrifs were mostly passed down indirectly to consumers, who aren't entitled to refunds. I definitely agree on principle, it sounds pretty tricky to see how proving "I paid $x more for groceries because of tarrifs" would work in practice. Does anyone know of policy suggestions for how that could work?

Most everything was probably bought with credit/debit cards. The individual records exist. Just using your Amazon etc order history should be dead simple

I think the tricky bit is less proving you bought something, and more proving that the thing you bought cost more than it otherwise would.

As I understand it (which isn't a lot), if you paid a tariff on an overseas order you're theoretically due it back, although that might require taking the government to court, which is gonna cost more than the settlement for most people.

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

#552

Post by phil21 »

coldpie wrote: post #541
phil21 wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not how commerce works. You agreed with your supplier on a price. You paid it. Doesn’t matter that part of the price was tariffs or component costs or labor. Doesn’t matter if your supplier gets a tax rebate or a kickback from an upstream supplier after the fact. These things are entirely immaterial to the meeting of the minds when you execute the contract for sale. The only moderately fuzzy case is going to b…

> Doesn’t matter if your supplier gets a tax rebate or a kickback from an upstream supplier after the fact. It does matter if the tax that was gathered was illegal, as it is here. The illegally gathered funds should go back to the entity that paid the tax, not the middleman who ferried it from here to there. The unclear method for how to accomplish this is where the grift will be coming in. > not even close to all co…

> I did not claim this. I claimed most of the money that will be refunded will go to Trump toadies.

That would require most of the money collected being from trump toadies to begin with. Anyone that regularly imports goods as a matter of business will also be requesting their refunds. Only a tiny fraction sold their rights.

> It does matter if the tax that was gathered was illegal, as it is here. The illegally gathered funds should go back to the entity that paid the tax.

The entity that paid the tax was the one that wrote the check to the federal government. They chose to (or not) pass all or a portion of those costs down to their customer. The customer in the end chose to purchase the goods or not.

If your landlord charges you $100/mo more in rent due to a property tax that was later reassessed due to a mistake, they are under no legal obligation to refund you that money. You chose to rent at the higher price.

Simply put: Your recourse was at the time of transaction. After that it’s no longer your money. Plenty of companies get refunded errant taxes paid years later due to law being misapplied or even found outright illegal. This is no different.

The only marginally interesting legal question here is going to be the companies that separated it out as a line item. I imagine this will be roughly as enforceable as “fuel surcharges” are on airline tickets - where the surcharge has nothing to do with the actual real time cost of Jet fuel. It will likely devolve all the way down to specific clauses in contracts, most of which will not cover this to start with. So it may as well be a “I’m wearing black socks today” tax as a line item would be my guess. Very interested in the first few test cases though!

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

#553

Post by b112 »

HWR_14 wrote: post #509
b112 wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's not, but that aside, how would consumers ever get a refund? Show up with a banana peel at a grocery, and say you want a tariff refund for the banana you paid cash for, 6 months ago? There's no tracking for almost all of tariff affected purchases.

Consumers wouldn't. Importers will.

Indeed. And the concept of passing any refund on is just untenable. My example is to highlight how unreasonable such an expectation is.

And while this specific tariff situation is silly, and annoying, it's been going on forever. There were cases of tariffs on lumber from Canada, with presidents of all stripes. Some were fought, won in court, and nary a person questioned "where is the refund for the consumer".

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

#554

Post by hvb2 »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #513
Calavar wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In this case, the idea that Cantor can't do something because the former head is now in a government job is crazy. No one "in the business" thinks Cantor is suddenly hobbled. That's not the idea, and it almost seems like a straw man to be honest. The actual idea is that the current head of Cantor can't do something because he's a direct relative of a high ranking government official whose powers and job duties pres…

Cantor Fitzgerald is an investment bank. Rather than claim a straw man, think about what they do and how it interacts with the administration. Everything they do is heavily regulated. If they couldn't do anything that gave an appearance of a conflict, they literally couldn't do a single thing that makes up their business and would be hobbled.

> Rather than claim a straw man, think about what they do and how it interacts with the administration.

Uh, essentially betting against a policy your former head put in place isn't a typical thing?

You would absolutely steer clear of this. There's plenty of other things they could be doing, no?

Just to make the point. This is such a typical thing investment banks do, that (especially) they are the ones doing it and nobody else?

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

#555

Post by coldpie »

phil21 wrote: post #552
coldpie wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn’t matter if your supplier gets a tax rebate or a kickback from an upstream supplier after the fact. It does matter if the tax that was gathered was illegal, as it is here. The illegally gathered funds should go back to the entity that paid the tax, not the middleman who ferried it from here to there. The unclear method for how to accomplish this is where the grift will be coming in. > not even close to all co…

> I did not claim this. I claimed most of the money that will be refunded will go to Trump toadies. That would require most of the money collected being from trump toadies to begin with. Anyone that regularly imports goods as a matter of business will also be requesting their refunds. Only a tiny fraction sold their rights. > It does matter if the tax that was gathered was illegal, as it is here. The illegally gather…

> Your recourse was at the time of transaction

These illegal taxes weren't only on optional goods. I couldn't opt out of buying everything for a full year. I disagree that it's OK for the government to force everyone in the country to give a $130B gift to business owners via an illegal action, the vast majority of which will be going straight to the wealthiest companies & people, and/or Trump's personal supporters. It's just straight-up theft.

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

#556

Post by ericmcer »

kowalej wrote: post #167
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?

Not only that, the companies used the tariff excuse to raise prices which will not come back down even if tariffs are fully off the table. Just like the price inflation during COVID.

This is what the government should really look into. Are prices being held at inflated levels to sustain profits? And if so why is capitalism not working? Why are competing companies not undercutting each other to bring them back down?

Can we have small watchdog programs that deeply study market conditions for critical resources (like peanut butter/eggs/milk/bread/etc.) and produce detailed data on why prices are what they are and what they estimate prices should be? It would be fascinating to see like detailed breakdowns and raw profit margins on different goods instantly.

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

#557

Post by AnssiH »

freetonik wrote: post #146

There was an interesting case in Finland. Finnish customs used to apply a 22% tax (ELV) on top of the car tax for imported used cars from other EU countries. On top of that, Finnish law required VAT to be charged on the car tax itself. There were multiple court cases and this practice was found unlawful (and actually against EU law). But the government did not issue automatic refunds, and instead requested that peopl…

> There was an interesting case in Finland. Finnish customs used to apply a 22% tax (ELV) on top of the car tax for imported used cars from other EU countries. On top of that, Finnish law required VAT to be charged on the car tax itself.

There was no VAT payable on the car tax of imported cars, only the ELV (ei-arvonlisävero, literally "not value added tax").

The ELV idea was that for locally bought new cars you did have to pay VAT on car tax, but for used EU imports that was not legally possible (cannot charge VAT again when importing used item from another EU country), so an equivalent non-VAT tax was invented so the full tax (inc. VAT/ELV) stays the same.

But this was unfair for e.g. the reason that Finnish companies buying cars could deduct Finnish car tax VAT on local new cars on their VAT return but not the car tax ELV on imported used cars (since it was not VAT).

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

#558

Post by crazygringo »

WesleyJohnson wrote: post #446
cvoss wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What businesses were legitimately going to go bankrupt by the increased tariffs? I'm not defending the tariffs, mind you, but I don't buy that every company had to increase prices to offset the additional taxes. Many could've taken the hit and been fine, except profits would be down and shareholders would be angry.

Lots of them. Profit margins in many sectors are low, lower than the cost of the tariffs.

> except profits would be down and shareholders would be angry.

Right. So when profits turn into losses, you expect shareholders to be OK with the stock price falling to zero and they lose their entire investment? You think this is "fine"?

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

#559

Post by crazygringo »

dawnerd wrote: post #202
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?

There's going to have to be class actions filed against the retailers if consumers want anything.

There would be zero legal basis for that. It wouldn't win.

I'm not defending that. Just explaining.

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

#560

Post by qingcharles »

b112 wrote: post #499
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…

Well it's not, but that aside, how would consumers ever get a refund? Show up with a banana peel at a grocery, and say you want a tariff refund for the banana you paid cash for, 6 months ago? There's no tracking for almost all of tariff affected purchases.

FedEx, I believe, have stated they will refund all consumers who paid them the tariffs, which they then paid to the gov. Nothing yet about the fees also incurred by consumers to pay the tariffs, but there are at least two class actions filed already on this subject, IIRC.
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