🚨 Trump illegally taxed working families for over a year. The Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional. $166 billion

[riversedge]

🚨 Trump illegally taxed working families for over a year.

The Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional. $166 billion is being refunded right now.

But here’s the part no one is talking about.

The refunds are going to the importers. Not to you. Not to the families who paid $1,751 more on groceries, on clothes, on car parts, on everything.

330,000 corporations are getting checks. 53 million shipments are being refunded with interest. You paid the tax. They’re getting the money. Trump said he’d “fight” giving any of it back to families.

His own words.

Newsom is right. Pay the people. $1,751 per household. Every dollar.

What’s the point of a court ruling something illegal if the people who actually paid never get their money back?

Link to tweet

?s=20

[Irish_Dem]

1. Taxpayers paid for the tariffs, then paid for the refunds.

They got screwed twice.

[Bettie]

17. Also, those prices?

They are NEVER coming back down.

[Lovie777]

2. Let this go viral...................

and we are still paying the taxes on the tariffs.

[vapor2]

15. don't forget we're paying for the ballroom, arch and reflection pool

He is stealing and not ONE fucking republican is saying squat

[Joinfortmill]

3. The more this shit comes out, the more people vote against his agenda. Keep the faith.

[ColoringFool]

4. So The US Importing Companies Got More $ From Us, And Now They'll Be Getting More $....

From the Govt?

Lucky importing companies, wot?

[Old Crank]

12. How did the importing companies get $ from the US?

To clear customs they had to pay the government. That is an added cost they had to front immediately when the goods arrived. Even if they ordered before the tariff.
So the reimbursement is for money they fronted.
Now they probably passed some of that on to the consumer. How do they refund you? And how much? remember that the tariff is on the value of the goods at the port, what they paid for them, not counting shipping.

[gab13by13]

5. Everything is going according to plan,

We are going back to feudal times. We unwashed Americans will be called serfs.

[ToxMarz]

6. Congress and the Supreme Court should have stopped this before it ever got to this point.

Realistically the only record the Government has of who paid the tariff is of the importer. Unfortunately tracking down and reimbursing the last person in the chain to have had the cost passed to them or any intermediary will be next to impossible.They may also have had partial cost passed to them or been gouged and over charged along the way. With the amount of money involved you can bet any other process of finding the consumers impacted and reimbursing them will rife with error, inefficiency, fraud and theft just as we saw during COVID.

[OldBaldy1701E]

7. "What's the point of a court ruling something illegal if the people who actually paid never get their money back?"

It is a 'paper victory'.

On paper, we won.

On the ground, and in reality, we got screwed and we don't care because we won't do anything to upset the wealthy gravy train.

But, on paper...

[jmowreader]

8. It's sort of the Robin Hood story, just in reverse

[Bengus81]

9. Just working families? Uhhh,we retired seniors got screwed too.

Let's get that straight right now..........

[tetedur]

10. Someone educate me. Are we not STILL paying tariffs?

As far as I can tell, nothing that I buy has dropped in price. That would indicate to me that the tariffs have been lifted. In fact, the price of coffee I buy went up more after the Supreme Court decision.

It also seems like Trump announces some new tariff or some increase every week.

I thought he was only able to impose tariffs for 150 days under certain circumstances. In July will we see the tariffs lifted? Or will he just impose new tariffs and keep the ball rolling for another 150 days?

[Old Crank]

11. This complaint is too simplified.

Take 3 kinds of businesses. Remember that the tariff is on the imported cost not the sales price.

1 imports fully manufactured items, and sells them direct to the consumer. You can figure out the tariff per unit on each one. Easy. Now how many did they sell. That is easy also. Now how to refund the tariff to the buyer? Gets more complicated. How many buyers? 1, 10, 10K? What is the cost per buyer to refund the money the government forced them to pay?

2. Importer of completed goods that sells to a retailer of some kind. They know how much they paid in taxes per unit. They know how much was added to each retailers bill. They don't know how many were sold. The retailer knows that and they would have to know who the buyers were to refund the tariff. Cash buyers? again what is the cost to refund small amounts to thousands of customers?

3. Businesses using raw materials or partially manufactured goods. Auto makers for one. Your soda cans for another.
They also know what they paid. But how does that get rebated to the end buyer when there could be many links in the chain and added tariffs in the process.

If I ordered something from another country and was hit with a tariff It should be easy to collect my tariff from the government. Other cases are going to be much harder to parse out.

[debsy]

13. Another massive transfer of wealth scheme

And the grift goes on.

[Danascot]

14. Maybe it's not an apples to apples comparison

but this site says as of May 14, the U.S. Has Brought in $112 Billion in Revenue From Gross Tariff and Certain Other Excise Taxes in 2026, and

In 2025, the U.S. Brought in $264 Billion in Net Tariff Revenues.

The total of 2025 and 2026 is $376B

https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/tariff-tracker/

[Ms. Toad]

16. The people who paid the government are getting their money back, assuming they apply for it.

The people who paid the government are the importers (or companies hire on behalf of importers).

I didn't pay the government a tariff on anything. I purchased goods. Those goods likely included at least a portion of the tariffs the importing company paid - but many companies absorbed part or all of the tariffs because they knew they would lose the market for their products if they passed all of it on. How much they passed on varies from company to company/product to product. It likely depended in part on whether there were non-imported competing products - or competing products from countries with lower tariffs.

I'm not suggesting prices were not higher because of tariffs - just that the ruling was the tariffs were unconstitutional means those who paid the tariffs **to the government** are entitled to a refund from the government. There was never any basis for a legal ruling that the end consumers, who did not pay the tariffs to the government, would be entitled to a tariff refund. Anything that was passed on to the consumer is between the consumer and the business (just like when there is an increase in the cost of anything else that goes into a product for any other reason - like, for example, the significantly increased costs now because anything made from oil is more expensive). The business determines how much it is willing to cut its profits (temporarily or permanently) and how much it believes the market will bear.

That's one of the reasons, in my opinion, that an injunction should have been granted - the damage done to the American public cannot be easily calculated or undone if the tariffs were ultimately found unconstitutional. Even the average cost per household - assuming it is accurate and doesn't include inflation unrelated to tariffs - assumes that each family was equally hurt. They weren't. Larger families likely paid - on average - more tariffs. Families who have easier choices as to where to buy goods were likely able to avoid more tariff-increased prices than those forced to shop at the corner store. I didn't personally pay a lot more due to tariffs. I have more resources than most (both access to money and stuff). I put off purchases, I bought things already in the US (used car, rather than new, for example), I ate things out of my freezer and pantry, I cooked more meals at home than I might otherwise have - avoiding tariff-hiked restaurant food. People living paycheck to paycheck didn't necessarily have those options. All of those were readily predictable consequences of tariffs, which the court could not solve by throwing money at the problem after the fact because even refunding money to those who paid the tariffs can't undo the incalculable (or at least very hard to calculate) harm that would inherently be done to others. (One of the rough factors for deciding if an injunction is warranted is that if you can (legally) throw money at the problem after the fact and make the injured party whole again, you aren't entitled to an injunction becasue there is no irreparable harm.)