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

#61

Post by vincnetas » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #45

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…

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…

i guess there would be much more initiative for Lutnik not to refund (ignore courts order, or drag them out like in other cases) if no one would have sold their rights to refund.

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

#62

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #45

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…

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…

It's not smart, it's extortion by someone connected to the state and self dealing.

If you think this is smart then you may as well go around clubbing old ladies over their heads, as long as you don't get caught it's like free money right?

The alternative is not to forbid companies from selling those rights, the alternative is to undo this deal and pay the whole amount back to those that originally forked it over and who needed to sell these 'rights' in order to keep their companies alive.

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

#63

Post by coldpie » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #45

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…

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…

> It’s a matter of implementation though. How would you refund so many people?

This was the point of the tariffs, wasn't it? The White House now has a $130B slush fund to distribute more or less however they want, with no accountability because accountability is by-design impossible. Sure maybe half of it will go where it ought to as a fig leaf, but a very large chunk of that cash will be making its way to Trump's loyalty crew.

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

#64

Post by AdamN » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

hypeatei wrote: post #7

[flagged]

Ironically I was mildly in favor of tariffs from the left pov. Reduced consumption and getting more taxes to help pay down the debt.

Consumption was likely mildly reduced (and still is with the 15% tax) but now we have more inflation coming our way when those billions start flowing and our debt just keeps going up.

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

#65

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #38

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…

I believe, with huge disappointment, that this level of corruption has been normalised in this administration and that nothing will come out of this.

[deleted]

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

#66

Post by magicalhippo » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

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 it on to you, you should have a reasonable case to get it refunded from FedEx when they get the money back. Ideally they handle it automatically since they have all the necessary details.

For manufacturing companies it's less clear, as some might have swallowed all or some of the duties, and multiple components might have been affected by different rates etc.

Will be interesting to see how companies who passed it on will handle this, given it's a massive PITA to do anything but screw over their customers.

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

#67

Post by hermanzegerman » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #45

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…

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…

It's enriching himself on the taxpayers expense.

Or would you trust someone on advising you, that has a pretty huge financial interest in proposing you policies that will fail because they are illegal?

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

#68

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

energy123 wrote: post #58

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.

Why is that unlikely? It would seem to be a very easy thing to accomplish. For instance, he could just ask.

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

#69

Post by JKCalhoun » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

WarmWash wrote: post #22

I have a few thousand dollars that I paid to a Chinese manufacturer who then used that money to pay an importer so that I could get my materials hassle free. Looks like the hassle will now be on the backend...

Yeah, I got the receipts even—with tariffs itemized.

I'll never see that money.

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

#70

Post by jerf » Thu, Mar 05, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

None of this matters; this is guaranteed to go to the Supreme Court. Too much money, too much precedent. The only thing being established now is the battleground as the procedure of getting up to the Supreme Court. The actual rulings on the way up to the Supreme Court are of minimal consequence.