Businesses are getting tariff refunds. Why aren't consumers getting their cut?
Although the government is refunding many tariffs, most of the money is going to businesses and importers — not consumers. Elise Amendola/AP hide caption Last year, Sandra Alonso needed a new powered wheelchair to get around her city of Tampa, Fla., after wearing out her old one. So she ordered the same model because she knew she could easily fold it and lift it without anyone's help. "It's just the perfect chair for me," she said. Unfortunately for Alonso, the chair is made in China, and when she bought it last year, tariffs on Chinese goods were a sky-high 145%. She paid an extra $3,500. "There's no reason I had to pay double for this chair," Alonso said. "The federal government should give me my money back." Alonso thought she should get the refund after the Supreme Court in February ruled that many of President Trump's tariffs were illegal , leading to the federal government having to refund more than $160 billion that it had collected.
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Part of the reason for that is shippers explicitly charged customers tariff fees — if the federal government charged FedEx $100 to import your package, FedEx then billed you $100. "Now that FedEx and UPS have received a refund of that $100 from the federal government, they are absolutely obligated to return it to the person they collected it from," said Terence Lau, dean of Syracuse University's college of law. "Otherwise it would be a pretty open-and-shut lawsuit against them for unjust enrichment." But do not expect the same from retailers .
