New York : A US trade court judge on Wednesday ordered the government to begin paying potentially billions of dollars in refunds to importers who paid tariffs that the Supreme Court said last month were collected illegally. When merchandise is brought into the United States, an importer pays an estimated amount at entry which is then finalised around 314 days later, a process known as liquidation.
Customs knows how to do this,” he told a court hearing on Wednesday, according to a recording on the court’s website. He said the agency should be able to program its system to issue refunds, which are regularly issued when an importer overpays on an estimated duty. Eaton also set a hearing for Friday in which he asked for updates on CBP’s refund plans. He said in his order that the court’s chief judge indicated that Eaton is the only judge who will hear tariff refund cases.
Customs and Border Protection has said in court filings that the task of finalizing entry costs without assessing a tariff was “unprecedented” in scale and could require manual review of more than 70 million entries. CBP previously told the court that implementing refunds could be extremely complicated because the tariffs affected a massive number of shipments.
The agency may need to review more than 70 million import entries, many of which could require manual processing. Customs had asked for up to four months to assess how to handle the refunds. The judge has scheduled another hearing on Friday to review the agency’s plans. The U.S. government collected more than $130 billion in tariff payments under the program, which was imposed using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The Supreme Court ruled the tariffs were collected illegally but did not specify how refunds should be handled, leaving lower courts to address the issue.
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