I can already see a new corporate grift.

[LiberalArkie]

US may owe $1 trillion in refunds if SCOTUS cancels Trump tariffs

If Donald Trump loses his Supreme Court fight over tariffs, the US may be forced to return “tens of billions of dollars to companies that have paid import fees this year, plus interest,” The Atlantic reported. And the longer the verdict is delayed, the higher the refunds could go, possibly even hitting $1 trillion.

For tech companies both large and small, the stakes are particularly high. A Trump defeat would not just mean clawing back any duties paid on imports to the US that companies otherwise can use to invest in their competitiveness. But, more critically in the long term, it would also end tariff shocks that, as economics lecturer Matthew Allen emphasized in a report for The Conversation, risked harming “innovation itself” by destabilizing global partnerships and diverse supply chains in “tech-intensive, IP-led sectors like semiconductors and software.”

Currently, the Supreme Court is weighing two cases that argue that the US president does not have unilateral authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Defending his regime of so-called “reciprocal tariffs,” Trump argued these taxes were necessary to correct the “emergency” of enduring trade imbalances that he alleged have unfairly enriched other countries while bringing the US “to the brink of catastrophic decline.”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/11/tariff-refunds-may-get-messy-if-trump-loses-supreme-court-fight/

First the stores raised the prices to offset the tariffs they were paying - Only proper really

Trump refunds the money that they paid for the tariffs. (I would almost bet that it will be non taxable)

Prices will stay up because they always do.

[marble falls]

1. That's justice.

[unblock]

2. If this importers recover 100% of tariffs, the end result will be

a massive redistribution of money from consumers and downstream businesses to importers who "passed on" some of the tariff costs. How do we and they recover the money from price hikes?

[dickthegrouch]

4. Yeah, how do we the consumers get our refund?

On both the original price and the elevated sales tax we incurred as a result of the tariff?

[Bettie]

7. We don't

that's the long and short of it....the businesses charged us for the tariffs and then, they get the money back that they paid and they raise their prices even more while talking about tariffs.

[unblock]

8. Exactly. Oh Donnie's giving us $2000. Yeah, "the check is in the mail"

[Walleye]

3. Prices won't come down. Think of administrative costs. Same old story

[patphil]

5. And the consumer gets the shaft, coming and going.

No one's going to reimburse us.

[tinrobot]

6. It's also a way to prop up the stock market just a little bit longer.

There's no way most of these companies can figure out who to refund. Is Home Depot going to refund you for the Canadian lumber you may have bought? Of course not. So, they'll keep the money for themselves.

The result will be a bump in quarterly profits thanks to the infusion of taxpayer cash.. Stocks go up and they can say we're not in recession (even though we really are)