WASHINGTON — You probably won’t receive a huge tariff refund.
The largest businesses stand to reap the biggest bucks as the Trump administration begins to return more than $166 billion in duties deemed illegal by the Supreme Court. Even though President Donald Trump’s trade policies have led to higher prices for companies and consumers, many families aren’t in line to benefit directly from the coming refund checks.
The discrepancy is a reflection of the nation’s complicated import laws — and the ever-fluid nature of Trump’s trade war.
When the government applies taxes to foreign goods, it charges the firms and brokers that bring those items into the country. Those costs proved substantial during the president’s first year back in office, after he imposed a set of so-called reciprocal tariffs on nearly every U.S. trading partner.
But a majority of justices on the nation’s highest court struck down those duties in February, forcing the administration to pay back much of its coveted tariff revenue. As a result, the government owes refunds to the importers on its record books — meaning companies, in many cases — even if those businesses ultimately shifted the costs of Trump’s taxes on to their customers.