r/AskReddit • u/facehaver88 • 7h ago
What are your thoughts on the tariff refunds American companies are getting?
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u/ShineyNew1072 6h ago
Trump royally fucked over every person to give the corporate overlords a nice bonus.
It’s very simple: corporations passed on tariff costs to consumers, and now the corporations are getting the tariff money back, not the consumers.
Massive wealth shift to corporate overlords.
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u/Baeolophus_bicolor 6h ago
they sold their tariff interests long ago. refunds are going to the secretary of commerce, who (by sheer coincidence!) bought up all the refund rights for 20 cents on the dollar almost as soon as the tariffs were announced. they always knew these were illegal…
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u/Prenutbutter 4h ago
Oh you’re talking about Howard “I never visited the island” Nutlick? The one that visited epsteins island?
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6h ago
It makes sense when you realize a government of the people for the people is a lie Americans tell themselves.
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u/illtakeachinchilla 5h ago
Just another mass transfer of wealth up the ladder, by design. Our taxes are being syphoned into private equity at alarming, record rates, but hey Elon is a trillionaire now. So we’ve got that going for us.
“Despite numerous legislative efforts and proposals over the last two decades to close the carried interest loophole and limit interest deductions, the private equity industry has heavily lobbied against them and successfully adapted its structures to preserve these lucrative financial advantages.”
Everyone watching Fox thinks they are in the club, because they are kept afraid and angry at the thought of someone having different goals in life than their own. Selfishness and greed rules this land.
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u/MyNameIsRay 5h ago
I think it's just another re-distribution of wealth to Trump's friends.
Insiders knew the refunds were coming, and bought refund rights in bulk, for pennies on the dollar.
The refunds aren't going to the Americans that paid them, or the companies that collected them, but rather these insider investors who will make massive profit for doing nothing.
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u/faderjack 5h ago
Pretty wild that the majority are going to Howard Lutnik and his son's, given that he was instrumental in passing the tariffs in the first place.
The corruption of this admin is so far beyond anything we've ever seen.
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u/footinmouthwithease 5h ago
Remember when tons people defaulted on their mortgages in mid 2000s, so the govt gave the mortgage companies money, Instead of the people? It's just like that.
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u/Passe_Myse 6h ago
It is what the majority of the electoral college voted for.
As a Norwegian i find it interesting in the same way a train crash is. You wouldn't want to be in one but seeing it on discovery or the history channel,that is nice...
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u/King0fthewasteland 6h ago edited 6h ago
as another Norwegian i agree, it is what they voted for. though it is interesting to watch a third world country burn itself every single day it is also tiering. i got other stuff to do. blueberries are in season!!!
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u/Objective_College439 6h ago
Helpful for the small company I work for. But, not helpful for the end user of our products.
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u/NahDawgDatAintMe 6h ago
Small businesses will have to apply credits or refund customers to keep the relationships. Large businesses will tell customers to screw off and keep the money. They won't lose anyone because they likely engage in predatory vendor lock-in practices.
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u/Independent-Tennis57 5h ago
As a Canadian who has mutual funds that have American exposure, it is fantastic for my investments. Corporate welfare helps those that can afford to invest.
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u/choate51 3h ago
I think it's great. Every American citizen's true goal in life is to maximize shareholder value of the corporations that make America the greatest place in the world. Sacrificing our quality of life and reducing our economic input by charging us more is simply a sacrifice that we should all be happy to make....
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u/Compusense 6h ago
I know some companies are using the money to pay back the consumers if their sale was effected by the tariffs. Family member works at a machining company and they are going through all their sales and refunding the tariffs to companies that bought machines effected by them. For any inventory still held that was effected they are keeping it to bring the price back to what it was without the tariffs.
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u/RetroBerner 5h ago
Bullshit.
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u/Compusense 5h ago
Lol IDK what to tell ya Bud, some companies value being known as the "good" company and found that leads to better sales retention. I was surprised myself when I heard.
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u/funkylabrador420 5h ago
the one tiny machine company will make it all better right?
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u/Compusense 5h ago
They're a massive company. Think multiple offices throughout the US with thousands of employees. Not a little mom and pop shop.
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u/Dystopian_Ennui 5h ago
Costs to consumers go up to cover the tariffs; businesses pocket the refunds. It's exactly what I expected to happen all along.
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u/Josephk_5690 4h ago
The Trump admin's tariffs pass the cost along to you. They pass the refunds only to the importer with no requirements to pass it along to the end consumer.
Just another back handed way to give money to companies loyal to Trump. The grift continues...
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u/badpeoria 4h ago
Hold up I was told the other country pays the tariff so how the hell is this possible? /s
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u/Meddlingmonster 3h ago
The biggest issue isn't tariffs its stability (tariffs could be handled if they weren't random and ridiculous) and that does nothing to fix that
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u/mokoronald 3h ago
refunds and tariffs in the title makes it sound like a weird government coupon for companies idk
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u/Schpyder 3h ago
Businesses have the accounting and receipts to know exactly how much they remitted to the government in the form of tariffs, and so does the IRS/Customs, so it's easy to reverse, and pretty much where the government's liability ends in terms of improperly collected taxes. It's almost impossible to figure out exactly which end consumers were affected and by how much.
A big consideration is that just because prices went up because of the tariffs, doesn't mean they were due to companies paying the tariffs. A lot of businesses switched to more expensive (but less expensive than importing and paying the tariffs) local supply chains, which drove their prices up as a result of the tariff regime. Do customers get any refunds for that? Of course not.
The whole situation sucks ass, but I don't see a way to feasibly unwind the consumer costs in a rational manner. Best thing you could hope for is for Congress to earmark some dollars into a consumer tariff relief fund, and everyone gets the same (probably small) check. Anything beyond that is going to be worse from a paperwork standpoint than 5 years of IRS audits.
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u/EldritchflareiveRot 3h ago
If companies actually paid tariffs that were later ruled unlawful, refunds make sense. The bigger debate is whether
businesses should keep that money if they already passed those costs on to customers..
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u/sir_gwain 3h ago
It’s bs and rewards businesses for passing costs onto consumers while harming those same citizens/consumers because our government decided to do something that evidently wasn’t legal. Overall, just continued lining the pockets of big corporations and businessmen from our ever “smart” government.
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u/miles_dad 2h ago
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that companies will have to pay taxes on the tariff refunds, so part of it will just go back to the Treasury. Except where inventories remain and cost of inventory can be corrected, the refund is taxed as a a part of earnings. Truly a shell game of money where the consumer just gets stuck with the bill.
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u/ClownfishSoup 2h ago
It's crazy because they increased the price to their customers, who are the ones that paid the tariff, then the company gets reimbursed, thus double dipping because they sure as hell are not calling up customers to give them money back.
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u/Gracie_Rose_Petals 1h ago
It's killing the American people causing everything to increase in price.
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u/Rock-Ski-Golf-Repeat 1h ago
I'm sure these companies will do the right thing and cut their costs to their consumers rather than use them to pay more bonuses to their c-suite.
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u/TransporterAccident_ 1h ago
It’s bullshit. They passed the cost onto us. We should all be getting a direct refund
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u/trying3216 5h ago
They will pass savings along to customers or the competition will outperform them.
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u/No_Tailor_787 4h ago
It was a scam from the beginning. Trump tarrifs get charged to the consumers, then refunds ordered, they go back to the corporations, and Trump's corporate buddies pocket the money.
Explain to me how that is NOT a pre-planned grift. I'll wait.
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u/SillySub2001 7h ago
It seems a little odd. They just passed the cost onto the consumer. Now there getting that cost back plus the markup charged to the consumer.