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

#591

Post by subscribed » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 9:52 PM UTC

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?

> big names such as Costco Wholesale, FedEx and Pandora Jewelry—seeking to recoup their money.

Oh, so it was always only about a money transfer from the customers (who fully and wholly bore the cost otlf the tariffs already) to the companies which will now get the refunds for what their customers already covered?

What a robbery.

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

#592

Post by andsoitis » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:06 PM UTC

petcat wrote: post #401

andsoitis wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t think her ego got in the way?

I think she had a principled perspective not to politicize her role as a Supreme Court Justice. Maybe her ideology was wrong.

> I think she had a principled perspective not to politicize her role as a Supreme Court Justice.

I can buy that.

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

#593

Post by padjo » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:10 PM UTC

sriram_malhar wrote: post #329

Wouldn't it be simpler to implement a 'spend-forward scheme' rather than returning? For example, spend that money on research grants and health care. It is returning the money to the people. A man can dream, no?

Sounds like communism to me.

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

#594

Post by Calavar » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:23 PM UTC

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.

> If they couldn't do anything that gave an appearance of a conflict

This time I won't say maybe - that's a straw man.

I never said Cantor shouldn't be able to do anything that even gives the appearance of a conflict. Or anything even close to that really.

As you said yourself further up the thread, investments of investment bank employees are highly regulated. And not only employees themselves, but also their immediate family members.

Yet that same level of legal regulation doesn't apply to immediate relatives of government officials. We've seen frequently with spouses and children of congressmen, and now we're seeing it with the son of a cabinet member. Yes, this may technically be legal, but legal does not equate to just and desirable. This reads to me like a serious loophole in the law that needs to be closed.

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

#595

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:28 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #267

coldpie wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life in prison for every single person working under this administration is the moderate position.

After this is all over, we probably need to do something about presidential pardon power. Getting a constitutional amendment through is hard, but I don't see another option.

A different understanding of the extension of the presidential pardon when it creates a conflict of interest from the SCOTUS would be one possible path.

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

#596

Post by tzs » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:31 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, while, of course, consumers get nothing.

Even if they hadn't made that bet were consumers going to get anything? The refunds would go to whoever directly paid the tariffs, which will generally be businesses.

I doubt that many businesses will go the effort of figuring out how much of any price increases they did while those tariffs were in effect raised the price for each individual customer, and issue refunds for that amount.

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

#597

Post by khat » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:32 PM UTC

US imposes tariffs, companies increase cost to offset price, consumers front the bill. Companies sue government, judge orders refunds, companies pocket money and keep prices at current rate. The people get screwed over twice.

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

#598

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:38 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #596

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, while, of course, consumers get nothing. Even if they hadn't made that bet were consumers going to get anything? The refunds would go to whoever directly paid the tariffs, which will generally be businesses. I doubt that many businesses will go the effort of figuring out how much of any price increases they did while those tariffs were in…

B2B stuff will often have the tariff as surcharge rather than rolled into the price.

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

#599

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:52 PM UTC

magicalhippo wrote: post #66

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.

> refunded to the importer of record. Not the people the costs were passed to I mean the importers were the ones who paid the duties. It's not a given they passed it on, and if it was then in many cases it was spread out. That is importer paid for one container of items, which in turn got sold to individuals which the government has no record of. If you ordered delivery by say FedEx and they paid the duty and passed…

[deleted]

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

#600

Post by tzs » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 10:55 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #264

burkaman wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You’re piling speculation on speculation. First of all, there was no such memo saying the tariffs were “very likely to be overturned.” The Supreme Court decision was 7-3, with two Bush appointees voting to uphold the tariffs. The appellate court decision was 7-4, with two Obama appointees and two Bush appointees dissenting. Second of all, there is no evidence that this legal analysis was leaked to Cantor.

Wait...how do we know there was no such memo?

We have no reason to believe that if such a memo exists it was used improperly, but I don't see how we could know there is no such memo.

BTW you've got an extra Justice on the Supreme Court. Should be 6-3, not 7-3.