4 ms·

I wonder if this means businesses can request the courts order the government to repay their unconstitutionally levied duties - especially when it meant it basi

I wonder if this means businesses can request the courts order the government to repay their unconstitutionally levied duties - especially when it meant it basically destroyed their ability to do business.

toomuchtodo 1y ago
Congressional Research Service: The Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA): A Legal Overview - https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R45732.pdf https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R45732.pdf - April 17th, 2023 Wikipedia: Sovereign immunity in the United States - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...
- Terr_ 1y ago
  There are exceptions, IIRC you can sue the Internal Revenue Service to return overpayments. It's less-clear whether the same is true for Customs and Border Patrol.
- godelski 1y ago
  As your first link says, this doesn't give them sweeping immunity. The intent of the policy (again, discussed in the first page but more later) is to protect the government from doing reasonable things. Sweeping immunity obviously doesn't exist, as evidenced by the court ruling this thread is about. The government gets sued all the time and frequently they have to pay damages. Remember, the US was explicitly set up to see itself as an adversary. You can read this in practically any of the federalist papers. The founders saw government as a necessary evil and even talked about how democracies often become autocracies by autocrats being freely elected. It's 250 years into that so yeah, things have changed a lot since then. But it's worth noting that a fair amount of this got embedded into the constitution. So it gets upheld as long as at least one party is adversarial to the other. Interestingly, in many ways this can be maintained even if both parties are adversaries to be people. Clearly something we don't want (cough) but that was by design. 250 years is a pretty good run
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    Based on my citations, I believe there is an argument to be made that government and presidential immunity might prevent any civil claims from sticking, but I would be pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong by the outcome of a legal action. If the tariffs are determined to be unlawful (after exhaustion of any appeals), one would think recourse would be possible, but only the outcome of legal proceedings would confirm.
    - godelski 1y ago
      There's an argument to be made but not one that will universally hold. What that means for tariffs, will IANAL (pretty sure that's most of us here too). So I don't know. But I do know the gov can't be sued for damages and isn't immune from consequences. That's all I was saying
- HumanOstrich 1y ago
  19 U.S.C. § 1514[1] provides for protests of customs decisions and judicial review under § 1515[2]. - § 1514 allows importers to protest CBP decisions on classification, valuation, duties, etc. within 180 days. - § 1515 then provides that denied protests can be challenged by civil action in the Court of International Trade. - These sections create the primary administrative exhaustion requirement for customs disputes. 28 U.S.C. § 1581[3] gives the Court of International Trade exclusive jurisdiction over customs matters. - § 1581(a) specifically grants exclusive jurisdiction over § 1515 actions (denied protests). - § 1581(i) provides residual jurisdiction over customs-related civil actions against the U.S. - This exclusive jurisdiction means federal district courts generally cannot hear customs cases. Tucker Act claims (28 U.S.C. § 1491[4]) allow recovery of improperly collected duties. - While § 1491 doesn't mention customs, its broad language covering claims "founded upon the Constitution, or any Act of Congress" has been interpreted to include illegal exactions. - Case law (e.g., Aerolineas Argentinas v. United States[5]) recognizes Tucker Act jurisdiction for customs refunds when protest remedies are unavailable or inadequate. - However, courts generally require exhaustion of protest procedures first, making Tucker Act claims a limited fallback option. [1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1514 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1514 [2]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1515 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1515 [3]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1581 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1581 [4]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1491 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1491 [5]: https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F3/077/77.F3d.1564.94-5077.94-5076.html https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F3/077/77.F3d....
givemeethekeys 1y ago
I still can't find evidence of anyone that has actually paid tariffs - nothing seems to be 3x more expensive compared to before the tariffs supposedly kicked in.
- flowerthoughts 1y ago
  Weren't most of them suspended, and the Chinese ones lowered? (I've been away for a while, and I'm not in the US so no "feel" for it.)
- ViewTrick1002 1y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/prusa3d/comments/1k0zsrx/1000_duty_on_xl_ordered_before_tariffs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/prusa3d/comments/1k0zsrx/1000_duty_... Not the highest tariffs since it wasn’t from China. And a 170% tariff bill. https://blog.adafruit.com/2025/05/08/high-tariffs-become-real-with-our-first-36k-bill/ https://blog.adafruit.com/2025/05/08/high-tariffs-become-rea...
- TwoNineFive 1y ago
  A ton of Walmart's "Mainstay" brand items from China got price-jacked even before their earnings call. Items which were $0.99 before went to $3 or even $7. I have a price tracker that watches a bunch of this stuff. Some of these items are now completely out of stock, even after the prices went up x3 or x7.
- trog 1y ago
  I work for a freight forwarder. We have some customers that exported to the US and were hit with the boosted tariffs. Only a few smaller air freight shipments, so not container loads full - they decided to eat the extra cost to try to keep momentum, just on those shipments. But it was only ever a short term strategy; if they had persisted they would have had to reconsider.
- iamtheworstdev 1y ago
  You might just be fortunate enough to have not purchased the items that went up. A simple Internet search and you'll find a bunch that did. There were also a lot of goods that ended up in bonded warehouses to wait out the eventual "TACO" (Trump Always Chickens Out) reduction of the tariffs.
mrtksn 1y ago
Apparently US collected a record amount of tariffs in April, about $16B. So someone definitely paid that. Maybe for most consumer goods the companies ate that and took a hit until they figure out how to price things because TACO.
- insane_dreamer 1y ago
  Is that a verified figure? Or are they like the DOGE "savings" figures? It's sad that it's come to the point of not being able to trust official government figures. That used to be a given, unlike some other countries (China being one).
  - mrtksn 1y ago
    It doesn't have anything to do with DOGE, that's just the tax the US importers are paying as a result of Trump tariffs: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/12/tariff-receipts-topped-16-billion-in-april-a-record-that-helped-cut-the-budget-deficit.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/12/tariff-receipts-topped-16-bi... It's just tax on consumption, the companies can choose whatever way to handle that(i.e. make less profit if they have the margins, increase prices if they can still sell it, go out of business etc. ).
    - insane_dreamer 1y ago
      I know it has nothing to do with DOGE. My point is that DOGE's total clusterf*ck of published numbers/data, whether intentionally or by incompetence, has now made me think twice about numbers being published by the government (doesn't help that Trump is an inveterate liar).

toomuchtodo 1y ago

Congressional Research Service: The Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA): A Legal Overview - https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R45732.pdf https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R45732.pdf - April 17th, 2023 Wikipedia: Sovereign immunity in the United States - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...

Terr_ 1y ago
There are exceptions, IIRC you can sue the Internal Revenue Service to return overpayments. It's less-clear whether the same is true for Customs and Border Patrol.
godelski 1y ago
As your first link says, this doesn't give them sweeping immunity. The intent of the policy (again, discussed in the first page but more later) is to protect the government from doing reasonable things. Sweeping immunity obviously doesn't exist, as evidenced by the court ruling this thread is about. The government gets sued all the time and frequently they have to pay damages. Remember, the US was explicitly set up to see itself as an adversary. You can read this in practically any of the federalist papers. The founders saw government as a necessary evil and even talked about how democracies often become autocracies by autocrats being freely elected. It's 250 years into that so yeah, things have changed a lot since then. But it's worth noting that a fair amount of this got embedded into the constitution. So it gets upheld as long as at least one party is adversarial to the other. Interestingly, in many ways this can be maintained even if both parties are adversaries to be people. Clearly something we don't want (cough) but that was by design. 250 years is a pretty good run
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  Based on my citations, I believe there is an argument to be made that government and presidential immunity might prevent any civil claims from sticking, but I would be pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong by the outcome of a legal action. If the tariffs are determined to be unlawful (after exhaustion of any appeals), one would think recourse would be possible, but only the outcome of legal proceedings would confirm.
  - godelski 1y ago
    There's an argument to be made but not one that will universally hold. What that means for tariffs, will IANAL (pretty sure that's most of us here too). So I don't know. But I do know the gov can't be sued for damages and isn't immune from consequences. That's all I was saying
HumanOstrich 1y ago
19 U.S.C. § 1514[1] provides for protests of customs decisions and judicial review under § 1515[2]. - § 1514 allows importers to protest CBP decisions on classification, valuation, duties, etc. within 180 days. - § 1515 then provides that denied protests can be challenged by civil action in the Court of International Trade. - These sections create the primary administrative exhaustion requirement for customs disputes. 28 U.S.C. § 1581[3] gives the Court of International Trade exclusive jurisdiction over customs matters. - § 1581(a) specifically grants exclusive jurisdiction over § 1515 actions (denied protests). - § 1581(i) provides residual jurisdiction over customs-related civil actions against the U.S. - This exclusive jurisdiction means federal district courts generally cannot hear customs cases. Tucker Act claims (28 U.S.C. § 1491[4]) allow recovery of improperly collected duties. - While § 1491 doesn't mention customs, its broad language covering claims "founded upon the Constitution, or any Act of Congress" has been interpreted to include illegal exactions. - Case law (e.g., Aerolineas Argentinas v. United States[5]) recognizes Tucker Act jurisdiction for customs refunds when protest remedies are unavailable or inadequate. - However, courts generally require exhaustion of protest procedures first, making Tucker Act claims a limited fallback option. [1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1514 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1514 [2]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1515 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1515 [3]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1581 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1581 [4]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1491 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1491 [5]: https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F3/077/77.F3d.1564.94-5077.94-5076.html https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F3/077/77.F3d....

givemeethekeys 1y ago

I still can't find evidence of anyone that has actually paid tariffs - nothing seems to be 3x more expensive compared to before the tariffs supposedly kicked in.

flowerthoughts 1y ago
Weren't most of them suspended, and the Chinese ones lowered? (I've been away for a while, and I'm not in the US so no "feel" for it.)
ViewTrick1002 1y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/prusa3d/comments/1k0zsrx/1000_duty_on_xl_ordered_before_tariffs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/prusa3d/comments/1k0zsrx/1000_duty_... Not the highest tariffs since it wasn’t from China. And a 170% tariff bill. https://blog.adafruit.com/2025/05/08/high-tariffs-become-real-with-our-first-36k-bill/ https://blog.adafruit.com/2025/05/08/high-tariffs-become-rea...
TwoNineFive 1y ago
A ton of Walmart's "Mainstay" brand items from China got price-jacked even before their earnings call. Items which were $0.99 before went to $3 or even $7. I have a price tracker that watches a bunch of this stuff. Some of these items are now completely out of stock, even after the prices went up x3 or x7.
trog 1y ago
I work for a freight forwarder. We have some customers that exported to the US and were hit with the boosted tariffs. Only a few smaller air freight shipments, so not container loads full - they decided to eat the extra cost to try to keep momentum, just on those shipments. But it was only ever a short term strategy; if they had persisted they would have had to reconsider.
iamtheworstdev 1y ago
You might just be fortunate enough to have not purchased the items that went up. A simple Internet search and you'll find a bunch that did. There were also a lot of goods that ended up in bonded warehouses to wait out the eventual "TACO" (Trump Always Chickens Out) reduction of the tariffs.

mrtksn 1y ago

Apparently US collected a record amount of tariffs in April, about $16B. So someone definitely paid that. Maybe for most consumer goods the companies ate that and took a hit until they figure out how to price things because TACO.

insane_dreamer 1y ago
Is that a verified figure? Or are they like the DOGE "savings" figures? It's sad that it's come to the point of not being able to trust official government figures. That used to be a given, unlike some other countries (China being one).
- mrtksn 1y ago
  It doesn't have anything to do with DOGE, that's just the tax the US importers are paying as a result of Trump tariffs: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/12/tariff-receipts-topped-16-billion-in-april-a-record-that-helped-cut-the-budget-deficit.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/12/tariff-receipts-topped-16-bi... It's just tax on consumption, the companies can choose whatever way to handle that(i.e. make less profit if they have the margins, increase prices if they can still sell it, go out of business etc. ).
  - insane_dreamer 1y ago
    I know it has nothing to do with DOGE. My point is that DOGE's total clusterf*ck of published numbers/data, whether intentionally or by incompetence, has now made me think twice about numbers being published by the government (doesn't help that Trump is an inveterate liar).