{"id":5838,"date":"2025-12-22T04:25:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T04:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=5838"},"modified":"2025-12-22T04:25:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T04:25:00","slug":"tariff-refunds-are-unlikely-because-that-would-be-very-complicated-hassett-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=5838","title":{"rendered":"Tariff refunds are unlikely because that would be ‘very complicated,’ Hassett says"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett offered more of a practical reason than a legal argument on the future of President Donald Trump\u2019s global tariffs.<\/p>\n

\n

Lower courts have ruled that the so-called reciprocal tariffs invoked under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act are illegal, though the Supreme Court will have a final say.<\/p>\n

In an interview on CBS News\u2019 Face the Nation<\/em> on Sunday, Hassett predicted that the justices will rule in the White House\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I also think that if they didn\u2019t find with us, that it\u2019s going to be pretty unlikely that they\u2019re going to call for widespread refunds, because it would be an administrative problem to get those refunds out to there,\u201d he added, explaining that whoever made the actual tariff payment would be in line to get a refund.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s as Trump has vowed that foreign countries would pay the tariffs, though importers in the U.S. have been footing the bill with many companies passing along at least a portion of the costs to consumers. <\/p>\n

Hassett said the eventual payer of a tariff \u201cdepends on elasticities of supply and demand,\u201d while noting Chinese companies have slashed their prices to offset tariff costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the people who pay the tariff, if there is a refund, the people who actually paid for the good, the importer, in most cases, they\u2019re the ones who would be the first line of defense for refunding the tariff,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I really, really don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to happen, it\u2019d be very complicated. And then that person would be responsible for allocating the tariff refund to the appropriate folks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hassett added, \u201cYes, it is a mess, and that\u2019s why I think the Supreme Court wouldn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trade experts have pointed out that the federal government already issues millions of refunds every year for income taxes, suggesting tariff refunds wouldn\u2019t be so daunting.<\/p>\n

Through late September, about $90 billion of the $174 billion in tariff revenue generated up to then came from the IEEPA duties.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, companies are already positioning themselves to get their money back in the event the Supreme Court strikes down the tariffs. <\/p>\n

Late last month, Costco filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade, joining dozens of other companies suing over the IEEPA duties.<\/p>\n

The warehouse club chain said it needed to go to court due to the uncertainty that refunds will be guaranteed if the Supreme Court rules the tariffs are illegal.<\/p>\n

Wall Street expects that to happen as justices largely seemed skeptical of the Trump administration when they heard arguments for the case.<\/p>\n

But other tariffs invoked under separate laws would be unaffected by a Supreme Court decision, and fresh tariffs could be imposed to replace the IEEPA levies.<\/p>\n

In a recent interview with the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>, Trump warned that if the Supreme Court strikes down his global tariffs, his alternatives are\u00a0not as \u201cnimble, not as quick.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI can do other things, but it\u2019s not as fast. It\u2019s not as good for national security,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#Tariff #refunds #complicated #Hassett<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

National Economic Council Dire… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[5224,486,3266,5223,489,497,491],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5838"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}