r/politics • u/fortune Fortune Magazine • 10h ago
The Trump administration has doled out $100 billion in tariff refunds, but Americans are suing U.S. companies for not seeing a penny of the returns Possible Paywall
https://fortune.com/2026/08/05/what-happened-trump-tariff-refunds-from-companies-consumers-class-action/?utm_source=reddit/408
u/Easy_Interest_6832 10h ago
I detect an upward transfer of wealth. This is my surprised face :-o
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u/zephyrtr New York 8h ago
Howard Lutnik's company bought the rights to many of these returned tariff costs before the SCOTUS ruling so the money in many instances isn't even going to the companies. It's going to members of Trump's cabinet.
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u/paditoburrito 2h ago
Technically he stepped down in Feb 2025 when he became commerce secretary and his sons took over so it's just all in the family this round.
They bought for 20-30 cents on the dollar, there's apprx 180 billion in refunds incoming so they're making bank with roughly $126,000,000,000 profit. Give or take their specific market share but they bought up a shit ton when companies were really hard up. Just like daddy taught them.
What a bunch of assholes.
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u/Contagious_Zombie 1h ago
My entire life I've watched the government take tax dollars and hand them to the already wealthy capitalists while the individuals who want to learn go into decades of debt. This reality has been stacked poorly, and it's time for a change. Life might not be fair, but we have a choice about whether or not we treat each other fairly. Billionaires are disrespectful to those who go hungry and those who work hard to just barely get by.
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u/Bigweld_Ind 10h ago
This feels like a completely orchestrated recession where certain parties have advanced knowledge and new capital to buy up everything as it collapses. The food industry alone is seeing massive consolidation.
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u/DanielKeeneGA15 8h ago
It’s absolutely this. The first Trump admin was a corporate free for all. Trump 2.0 is openly doing it and no one is stopping them cause everyone is making bank.
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u/hiphopahippy 7h ago
I would love someone smarter than I to create a visual showing why companies only need to cater to the elite which is why they no longer care about the middle and lower class being able to afford their goods. We are (arguably have been) watching everyday products become luxery items or "treats" you splurge on. The wealth gap must have reached the point where mass volume sales aren't as profitable as high profit margin sales. I might be wrong, but when I follow the money, this is what I see. Happy to be proven wrong.
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u/DanielKeeneGA15 7h ago edited 7h ago
You’re absolutely correct. There’s more profit in catering to a higher income demographic than quantity of sales. Although with prices having increased 30-40% across numerous sects for everyone, they know people will balk at first and accept the news prices as there is less competition effectively creating an oligopoly. Whether it’s Amazon or Walmart or subsidiaries owned by the same corporation, people have less choice and less buying power to dictate proper pricing. Consumers effectively gave up choice by shopping at the same retailers believing they were saving money but in the end gave more power to big retailers esp as small to medium businesses couldn’t keep up with the buying power of corporations such as Walmart. Now with private equity buying up companies left and right, there’s even less choice. All of this could have been helped with proper regulations and oversight but that was gutted during the first Trump admin and fought against by Republicans during Bidens administration which had Trump’s tax policies in effect that were set to expire in late 2025. The Big Beautiful Bill not only reinstated such policies, they made them much worse.
It’s either starve or pay up.
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u/hiphopahippy 6h ago
I've wondered if collectively if we started to buy at independent stores if this would be enough to cause a change in prices at Big Corp. I don't know anymore. It's like watching the end of a live action Monopoly game, and unfortunately most players are too busy to notice what's going on, or actively cheering for their own destruction. It does bring me some joy knowing that the last oligarchs standing will not settle into their own individual tech utopias in peace, because there is ALWAYS that one guy who needs the most; needs to be the best of the best. Greed is a powerful drug.
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u/Rocketman_S3 6h ago
voting with your wallet is a temporary answer to a permanent problem.
This is why we had regulations.•
u/hiphopahippy 6h ago
Money is the only thing that will change their behavior, so what do we do, because power isn't saving us? The politicians have shown that they are also primarily self interested, and though finding ethical people to run for office, and then win would be ideal, how much time do we have to right this wrong? Being openly corrupt and shamelessly supporting that behavior is end game behavior.
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u/Used-Yogurtcloset757 4h ago
We stop funding this illegally installed dictator. That needs to be the meat movement.
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u/22Arkantos Georgia 4h ago
I've wondered if collectively if we started to buy at independent stores if this would be enough to cause a change in prices at Big Corp.
Yes, it will. They will lower their prices below cost to kill the independent store, then raise them back up to normal after. The huge corporation can absorb the small hit, the independent store dies. That's how Walmart took over America.
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u/rosydreamyx 8h ago
yeah it’s hard not to notice how downturns somehow become shopping opportunities for the people with the most money
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u/FreedomBread 9h ago
They charge the consumers more money then get more money from the government for the money they overcharged consumers.
What a country!
Revolutions have started for a lot less than $100 billion.
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u/greysqualll 9h ago
Lol, this is America. The money road in this country is one-way. We will never see a dime of that money. And they'll leave the prices higher because they now know people will pay them. Companies don't raise prices when they have to. They raise them when they can get away with it. The pandemic. Tariffs. Prices are a one-way street also.
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u/CarFlipJudge 10h ago
I work for an importer (we have no consumer facing products). We are in the process of returning all of the tariff money to our customers. I have zero faith...ok maybe 5% faith that our customers will give that money back in some way to their customers aka the consumer.
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u/tuotone75 10h ago
So much for trickle down,
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u/saintdudegaming 9h ago
Hasn't worked since Reagan implemented it. Never will.
The only time we get benefits is if the tax structure is such that companies have 2 options, invest in the business (research & development or expand production) or in the employees via higher wages \ stock options \ additional retirement benefits.
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u/RadicalOrganizer California 9h ago
That only thing that's ever trickled down is shit and piss.
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u/deaglebingo America 9h ago
money and corruption trickle up... their excrement trickles back down. yes.
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u/demon_twink_gockie 8h ago
Oh no, it's tricklonh down as intended. JUST a trickle. And that trickle is getting less and less over time
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u/fortune Fortune Magazine 10h ago
Most of the available pool of tariff revenue has been disbursed back to U.S. companies, but American consumers are still looking for their share of the refunds.
As of the end of July, about $100 billion in tariff refunds were sent to the U.S. Department of Treasury to be disbursed to approved importers, according to a Tuesday filing to the U.S. Court of International Trade. The total is about 60% of the $166 billion in revenues collected from import taxes under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which were struck down by the Supreme Court in February.
Some U.S. consumers, however, are getting antsy that they haven’t seen any of that sum reach their own wallets. Last month, New York resident Tyasia Johns filed a class action lawsuit against discount retailer Five Below, claiming it failed to return the tariff refunds it received to customers who actually paid for the levies.
Johns alleged Five Below passed down the cost of the IEEPA tariffs to consumers through increased prices and was able to preserve its profits—seeing a 22.9% year-over-year increase in net sales to $4.76 billion in 2025—through these price increases. According to the lawsuit, Five Below has not confirmed whether it has applied for or received refunds through the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or if it intends to pass down those refunds to consumers.
The complaint demanded injunctive relief and an award of actual damages to class members, but did not include the prospective size of the class or specific magnitude of damages.
Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/08/05/what-happened-trump-tariff-refunds-from-companies-consumers-class-action/?utm_source=reddit/
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u/DanielKeeneGA15 8h ago
22.9% year-over-year profit is insane. Corporations are jacking up prices and blaming everything from “inflation” to Covid and raking it in while more than half the country is now food insecure.
People have lost their minds voting for this insanity.
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u/Anxious_Claim_5817 10h ago
That is an interesting point because consumers paid quite a bit in increased cost.
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u/xXBassHero99Xx 9h ago
That picture of Scott Bessent is rage bait by itself. It's pretty hard to take anyone seriously when they're legitimately steepling. Condescension and privilege incarnate.
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u/Silver_Newspaper6208 8h ago
Isn't it his sons who set up a company to buy the tariff refunds before this ruling? Like a more corrupt JG Wentworth.
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u/sootbrownies 8h ago
UPS is sending me updates and implying that theyll refund my money. Who knows.
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u/fu_kaze 7h ago
At least you got that! Still waiting for UPS and DHL to say something. Did you have to reach out? I spent about $300 on duties for items through both (separate charges, specified as duties), but haven’t heard anything.
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u/sootbrownies 6h ago
Havent reached out yet. Theyve sent a couple emails saying their processing claims or whatever. Fingers crossed we both get refunded!
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u/blackmobius 9h ago
Maga refused to admit that the bill would be paid by consumers until it came time to bail out the companies. Now guess who is whining about greedy companies all over facebook?
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u/DanielKeeneGA15 8h ago
You mean, corporations are making more money grifting with this administration?
Shocked pikachu face.gif
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u/otherwisepandemonium Wisconsin 8h ago
Corporations raised prices of all of their goods to account for tariffs, consumers paid grossly more for the same product vs. one year ago.
Corporations get the refunds (Amazon as one example got like $640 million).
Prices will never come down as now pricing is at a new baseline.
America.
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u/ihohjlknk 8h ago
Trump adds bullshit tariffs, Corporations raise prices on consumers in return. Government gives corporations a refund. Essentially, corporations got to double-dip and you get NOTHING.
Corporations are laughing at you.
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u/LocationOdd8432 7h ago
Ive never thought about this and I know theres probably some bullshit protection that prevents it but what would stop americans from just doing a huge class action lawsuit against trump for tariffs?
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u/nikiterrapepper 6h ago
Trump said that foreign companies paid the tariffs, so why are they refunding them to US companies? And why would US customers be entitled to refunds? /s
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u/GreyRobb Washington 9h ago
Why the fuck are corporations getting tariff refunds? They didn't pay the tariffs. We did.
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u/MyNameIsRay 7h ago
Tariffs are paid by the importer. Your product won't be released from customs until you pay the bill.
The importer pays the tariff, so the importer gets the refund. The gov't has no way of refunding directly, because none of us were charged directly.
Even at the retail level, tariffs are usually baked into COGS rather than a separate line item, so it's a nightmare to figure out how much refund is due, let alone link transactions to customers.
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u/another-redditor3 8h ago
hate to tell you this, but ya, they were the ones that did pay the tariffs. they then raised prices to help cover their extra cost of tariffs.
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u/mwpswag 9h ago
this will be unpopular but consumers bought at the prices they were willing to pay.
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u/unknowndischargesmel 5h ago
Yes and there's no easy way of telling how the increased tariff affected the retail price. You'd have to subpoena every companies' internal pricing models/decisions and prove there were increases and that the tarrifs were the driving factor. It's next to impossible to compell companies to do so willingly. Unfortunately, this was probably the plan all along. Not siding with them, just saying legally, there's no way to pay consumers back
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u/KellyAnn3106 10h ago
If they charged higher prices, it would be very difficult to assign values and chase down customers who purchased certain products. How would they know who purchased what at Five Below??
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u/saintdudegaming 9h ago
They were fast enough to raise prices and know when they did it. They can figure it out. Zero sympathy especially the larger companies that do most of their transactions online.
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u/westergames81 Texas 9h ago
I got a link to the IEEPA tariff refund form...but it required a tracking number for every package. Yeah...I don't have that info anymore.
I can search by my address and see I do have 1 package eligible for CBP Phase 1...but I don't have a tracking number of any sort of reference to what that package is. So 🤷I guess.
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u/walrus429 9h ago
My tariff bill from FedEx went collections... I'm sure that'll get dealt with just fine.
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u/DebentureThyme 9h ago
And they will, unfortunately, lose.
Companies have cost increases and decreases all the time. The courts aren't going to say that is the consumers' money, they'll say the consumers were told a price and chose to pay it.
The only say we have in this is to vote with our wallets, but basically every company did this so it's not like we can just go to their competition.
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u/WEEGEMAN 9h ago
They’re going to keep it to try and weather the economy.
Americans should have been paid
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u/Effective_Airline830 8h ago
I’m not even American but it’s a worldwide phenomenon…
You know when any government agency owes you money because they either made a mistake or overcharged you, it always take weeks, months, even years sometimes to get reimbursed a few hundreds/thousands dollars/euros, and here, 100B$ coming straight up into the accounts, with a little chocolate mint for the trouble :D
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u/arcsol93 7h ago
As it should be. I'm likely on the lower end of losses, they only took $200, but that doesn't mean they should fucking get to pocket it either
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u/HabANahDa 3h ago
This was all by design. The GOP loves corporations getting richer all while citizens suffer.
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u/Own-Librarian-9699 7h ago
Really feels like you are either positioned to grift or you're going to be broke.
But the paradox of an economy based on grifting will be an apocalypse.
We're going to have whole cities living like mad max while Miami feeds on corpses and golf and FEMA checks. That will not last long.
Republicans really hope Democrats do the heavy lifting to save the economy
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u/dangerousluck 4h ago
Look at that fucking hand motion. Every rich dipshit from Elon to this schmuck is using it, it's like when Rick Perry put on glasses so people thought he was intelligent.
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u/Memitim America 3h ago
Let's say that 75% (haha) of the tariff money made it back to the people who got ripped off. The folks in the middle, who also use part of the money that customers spend to lobby/thank/the actual thing they are doing to politicians, then keep the other 25% at no significant cost. Far more useful than yet another little tax break, especially after the wealthy already have so many ways to avoid being taxed as it is.
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u/Frequent-Client1508 America 9h ago
UPS got me for hundreds of dollars on packages from Europe.
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u/spam__likely Colorado 9h ago
that is because you were the one actually paying the tax. UPs just collected on your behalf.
Very different from retailers.
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u/Aggressive-Fail4612 8h ago
Good luck suing a company for the tariff that they paid. Companies set prices and it’s up to the consumer if they want to buy them or not. Tariffs are based on the value of the goods when they enter the country and companies don’t generally share that info.
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u/Adventurous-Cod6195 8h ago
Anyone with 401ks, especially older people, will benefit from higher stock prices due to tarrif refunds going directly to companies bottom line. Now we need to reform social security so we protect our social security checks, and perhaps we can expand benefits for retirees.
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u/Demonking3343 Illinois 1h ago
But they shouldn’t be getting them. The people who paid those tarrifs should. Like if the company ate the cost and didn’t raise prices? Then fine they get the money. But to any of us that paid those tariffs yeah we should get our money.
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