US Government will begin Refunding Trump Tariff Money of Over $166 Billion to Businesses

Donald Trump THOUGHT he could just Levy Tariffs and Import Taxes on his own…..

‘NOPE’ said the Supreme’s……

Congress does THAT……

Not YOU…..

So?

The US Customs Department will begin REFUNDED All that money Donald Thought he could get….

You the taxpayer , who paid for some of this money?

You don’t get that $2,500 check Donald promised…

And?

I doubt your gonna get lower prices on the imported goods that had tariff/import tax price raises on….

Another Donald Trump fuck up, eh?

 

When President Trump unveiled his sprawling global tariffs last spring, he boasted that they would generate windfall profits and “make America wealthy again.”

But after suffering a significant Supreme Court defeat, Mr. Trump is about to pay the money back.

The Trump administration on Monday took its first steps toward returning more than $166 billion collected from tariffs that were struck down in February. Just over a year after imposing many of the duties, the government began accepting requests for refunds, surrendering its prized source of revenue — plus interest.

For some U.S. businesses, the highly anticipated refunds could be substantial, offering critical if belated financial relief. Tariffs are taxes on imports, so the president’s trade policies have served as a great burden for companies that rely on foreign goods. Many have had to choose whether to absorb the duties, cut other costs or pass on the expenses to consumers.

By Monday morning, those companies could begin submitting documentation to the government to recover what they paid in illegal tariffs. In a sign of the expected demand, more than 3,000 businesses, including FedEx and Costco, had already sued the Trump administration in a bid to secure their refunds before the application website launched, with some cases filed even predating the Supreme Court’s ruling.

But only the entities that officially paid the tariffs are eligible to recover that money. That means that the fuller universe of people affected by Mr. Trump’s policies — including millions of Americans who paid higher prices for the products they bought — are not able to apply for direct relief.

The extent to which consumers realize any gain hinges on whether businesses share the proceeds, something that few have publicly committed to do. Some have started to band together in class-action lawsuits in the hopes of receiving a payout.

Many business owners said they weren’t sure how easy the tariff refund process would be, particularly given Mr. Trump’s stated opposition to returning the money. The administration has suggested that it may be months before companies see any money. Adding to the uncertainty, the White House has declined to say if it might still try to return to court in a bid to halt some or all of the refunds….

….

While the government has lost trade cases in the past — and has been forced to refund money as a result — the repayment process now awaiting Mr. Trump is unlike any in recent history. By the administration’s own count, there were more than 330,000 importers by March that had paid IEEPA duties on more than 53 million entries.

The government estimates that it amassed more than $166 billion in revenue from those taxes on imports. That outstanding balance is expected to accrue roughly an additional $650 million in interest each month, or about $22 million per day, according to Scott Lincicome, the vice president for general economics at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute.

The fiscal stakes alone prompted Mr. Trump to assert throughout the legal battle that a loss could tip the government into a “GREAT DEPRESSION!,” a claim that economists widely rejected. Once the Supreme Court ruled against him, his administration then tried to slow the process until the Court of International Trade intervened in March and ordered the government to return the money to importers…..

….

Alex Durante, a senior economist at the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit that generally favors lower taxes, said he did not expect businesses to exhibit an “immediate urge to pass all that back to consumers.”…

More….