4 ms·

... 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 i

... 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.

bdangubic 8mo ago
that was the plan all along
- davidw 8mo ago
  These people are evil, but also bumbling idiots, so sometimes there is no evil plan, just incompetence.
  - candiddevmike 8mo ago
    There are direct ties from the administration to companies offering hedges against tariffs. There was absolutely an evil plan, IMO.
  - JKCalhoun 8mo ago
    Agree. But a few sure scrambled when they read the tea leaves and saw a chance to profit by it.
  - bdangubic 8mo ago
    they are everything except incompetent when it comes to massively looting us and profiting.
candiddevmike 8mo ago
It's COVID PPP all over again... Expect more asset inflation.
NuclearPM 8mo ago
Tax to businesses? You think the costs were only passed down once? Really?
coldpie 8mo ago
Yet another successful Republican transfer of wealth from the people who do the work (employees) to the people who don't (owners).
adampunk 8mo ago
[flagged]
- ceejayoz 8mo ago
  Their skirts were too short and they didn’t scream hard enough, eh?
  - adampunk 8mo ago
    No, THE PEOPLE COMPLAINING ABOUT DEMOCRATS. Christ on a bike,
mhb 8mo ago
Since the cost was probably split between reduced profit and additional customer cost, it seems pretty impractical to determine who is due a refund - end users or businesses. Or the logistics of refunds to customers. One possibility would be for businesses to return the fraction of the tariff paid by customers to future customers by offering the items affected with a negative tax until the refund is used up.
- Larrikin 8mo ago
  Making people spend more money to "save" money is just a sale to increase profits even more.
- JKCalhoun 8mo ago
  "Since the cost was probably split between reduced profit and additional customer cost…" Ha ha, that's a good one. I have yet to hear about reduced profits anywhere. Instead, as I said in another comment, I have actual physical receipts with the additional tariff cost (itemized!) in a pile on my workshop (which I'll never see refunded).
  - pwg 8mo ago
    If the amounts are under the limit you might sue the company who cut those invoices in small claims court for the amounts of the tariff line items on the invoices. The invoices give you slam dunk evidence that you paid that amount in tariffs, and the supreme court decision says the payment was illegally collected, so seems like an easy win for you.
  - philipallstar 8mo ago
    > Instead, as I said in another comment, I have actual physical receipts with the additional tariff cost (itemized!) in a pile on my workshop (which I'll never see refunded). You could ask for a tariff refund from those suppliers.
- quickthrowman 8mo ago
  > Since the cost was probably split between reduced profit and additional customer As someone who prices and sells labor and material for a living, nobody ate increased tariffs. They were passed along to the ultimate consumer of the tariffed product. Everyone was facing the same tariffs so they’re all incentivized to pass the cost along, line iteming the tariffs on the invoice would make it abundantly clear. I passed along all increased costs with a note on my proposal that said “Any and all additional tariffs will be paid for by the customer.”
magicalhippo 8mo ago
> 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.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- toast0 8mo ago
  > 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. I didn't have to deal with it, but from other comments, most of the international shippers also charged a hefty fee to broker the tarrifs. Expect not to get that refunded.
andyfilms1 8mo ago
I understand the frustration but I don't understand the logic. The businesses who paid the tariffs (who were literally sent an invoice that they paid) should be the ones refunded. How would the government even be able to determine if a business increased product prices due to tariffs vs other factors, or even if the business increased prices at all? What if the product is a loss leader and the company was fine just eating the expense? Or what about a nefarious company who manufacturers their stuff in Canada but used "tariffs" as an excuse to increase prices? What would they be refunded from?
- coldpie 8mo ago
  Yes, you're almost there, just go one step further. Now you've got a big pile of money and no clear rules on where it should go. Who gets to decide where it will go? Given how this administration operates, where do you think it will go?
- giancarlostoro 8mo ago
  > I understand the frustration but I don't understand the logic. The businesses who paid the tariffs (who were literally sent an invoice that they paid) should be the ones refunded. So if I'm the owner of Uncle Billy Bobs Autoparts and I ship from Madeupcountry. I billed you $500 extra for some new car part. The US government refunds me on the tariffs they charged me to import my product to you, and now your taxes is going into my refund. Who wins in this scenario? They're effectively giving every country a free bonus. I wouldn't be surprised if some people got scammed by the tariffs by being overcharged. There's no serious paper trail to any of this to meaningfully return lost revenue to the American consumer, I would rather not waste tax dollars on refunds. I guess the only "winners" are maybe businesses that didn't pass on the revenue loss on to the consumer? But how do you even correctly refund those businesses?
  - philipallstar 8mo ago
    You just refund the people who pay the tariffs. You can't do any more than that.
giancarlostoro 8mo ago
One thing that should happen moving forward, whether we keep tariffs in one way or the other, we need consumer protection laws. I assume companies abused the "oh yeah you owe us for the tariffs" as a way to overcharge consumers. I think additional costs driven by tariffs should be 100% spelled out to the consumer next to where you're shown the tax amount. This should allow for auditing later if companies overcharge. It also would make "refunding" more reasonable, since you could show a receipt if technically you paid for a tariff, otherwise, if the company swallows it, they would show the amount but 'discount' or 'omit' it as something they are choosing to pay for. Without a paper trail I don't see how refunding any of this is feasible.

bdangubic 8mo ago

that was the plan all along

davidw 8mo ago
These people are evil, but also bumbling idiots, so sometimes there is no evil plan, just incompetence.
- candiddevmike 8mo ago
  There are direct ties from the administration to companies offering hedges against tariffs. There was absolutely an evil plan, IMO.
- JKCalhoun 8mo ago
  Agree. But a few sure scrambled when they read the tea leaves and saw a chance to profit by it.
- bdangubic 8mo ago
  they are everything except incompetent when it comes to massively looting us and profiting.

candiddevmike 8mo ago

It's COVID PPP all over again... Expect more asset inflation.

NuclearPM 8mo ago

Tax to businesses? You think the costs were only passed down once? Really?

coldpie 8mo ago

Yet another successful Republican transfer of wealth from the people who do the work (employees) to the people who don't (owners).

adampunk 8mo ago

[flagged]

ceejayoz 8mo ago
Their skirts were too short and they didn’t scream hard enough, eh?
- adampunk 8mo ago
  No, THE PEOPLE COMPLAINING ABOUT DEMOCRATS. Christ on a bike,

mhb 8mo ago

Since the cost was probably split between reduced profit and additional customer cost, it seems pretty impractical to determine who is due a refund - end users or businesses. Or the logistics of refunds to customers. One possibility would be for businesses to return the fraction of the tariff paid by customers to future customers by offering the items affected with a negative tax until the refund is used up.

Larrikin 8mo ago
Making people spend more money to "save" money is just a sale to increase profits even more.
JKCalhoun 8mo ago
"Since the cost was probably split between reduced profit and additional customer cost…" Ha ha, that's a good one. I have yet to hear about reduced profits anywhere. Instead, as I said in another comment, I have actual physical receipts with the additional tariff cost (itemized!) in a pile on my workshop (which I'll never see refunded).
- pwg 8mo ago
  If the amounts are under the limit you might sue the company who cut those invoices in small claims court for the amounts of the tariff line items on the invoices. The invoices give you slam dunk evidence that you paid that amount in tariffs, and the supreme court decision says the payment was illegally collected, so seems like an easy win for you.
- philipallstar 8mo ago
  > Instead, as I said in another comment, I have actual physical receipts with the additional tariff cost (itemized!) in a pile on my workshop (which I'll never see refunded). You could ask for a tariff refund from those suppliers.
quickthrowman 8mo ago
> Since the cost was probably split between reduced profit and additional customer As someone who prices and sells labor and material for a living, nobody ate increased tariffs. They were passed along to the ultimate consumer of the tariffed product. Everyone was facing the same tariffs so they’re all incentivized to pass the cost along, line iteming the tariffs on the invoice would make it abundantly clear. I passed along all increased costs with a note on my proposal that said “Any and all additional tariffs will be paid for by the customer.”

magicalhippo 8mo ago

> 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.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
toast0 8mo ago
> 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. I didn't have to deal with it, but from other comments, most of the international shippers also charged a hefty fee to broker the tarrifs. Expect not to get that refunded.

andyfilms1 8mo ago

I understand the frustration but I don't understand the logic. The businesses who paid the tariffs (who were literally sent an invoice that they paid) should be the ones refunded. How would the government even be able to determine if a business increased product prices due to tariffs vs other factors, or even if the business increased prices at all? What if the product is a loss leader and the company was fine just eating the expense? Or what about a nefarious company who manufacturers their stuff in Canada but used "tariffs" as an excuse to increase prices? What would they be refunded from?

coldpie 8mo ago
Yes, you're almost there, just go one step further. Now you've got a big pile of money and no clear rules on where it should go. Who gets to decide where it will go? Given how this administration operates, where do you think it will go?
giancarlostoro 8mo ago
> I understand the frustration but I don't understand the logic. The businesses who paid the tariffs (who were literally sent an invoice that they paid) should be the ones refunded. So if I'm the owner of Uncle Billy Bobs Autoparts and I ship from Madeupcountry. I billed you $500 extra for some new car part. The US government refunds me on the tariffs they charged me to import my product to you, and now your taxes is going into my refund. Who wins in this scenario? They're effectively giving every country a free bonus. I wouldn't be surprised if some people got scammed by the tariffs by being overcharged. There's no serious paper trail to any of this to meaningfully return lost revenue to the American consumer, I would rather not waste tax dollars on refunds. I guess the only "winners" are maybe businesses that didn't pass on the revenue loss on to the consumer? But how do you even correctly refund those businesses?
- philipallstar 8mo ago
  You just refund the people who pay the tariffs. You can't do any more than that.

giancarlostoro 8mo ago

One thing that should happen moving forward, whether we keep tariffs in one way or the other, we need consumer protection laws. I assume companies abused the "oh yeah you owe us for the tariffs" as a way to overcharge consumers. I think additional costs driven by tariffs should be 100% spelled out to the consumer next to where you're shown the tax amount. This should allow for auditing later if companies overcharge. It also would make "refunding" more reasonable, since you could show a receipt if technically you paid for a tariff, otherwise, if the company swallows it, they would show the amount but 'discount' or 'omit' it as something they are choosing to pay for. Without a paper trail I don't see how refunding any of this is feasible.