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Comment by mattas | Hacker News Reader

The idea of getting a refund for mischaracterized tariffs is actually fairly common (it's called a duty drawback and there's a cottage industry around this). It's generally used when an importer incorrectly categorized their import under an HS code that has a higher duty than the correctly categorized HS code.

The difference this time is the scale is orders of magnitude larger. Will be interesting to see how they (importers and CBP) work through this.

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A regular importer who routinely pays customs duties is now owed money by Customs and Border Protection. Can they now set off future duties against the balance owed them? Normally, reciprocal debt cancellation is legal.

The U.S. Treasury has a whole system for this, but in the other direction. If the government owes you money, and you owe the government money, the Treasury will deduct what you owe from whatever they are paying out.[1] But they're not set up for that in the other direction.

[1] https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/TOP/

Smart money is that they will make some token comment about "leave it up to the states" or lower courts and then do absolutely nothing about it

The feds are the ones that control import duties, not the states. The courts will decide two years from now what to do.

I get how it works, I’m mostly talking about the how admin will spin it/shirk responsibility

> The difference this time is the scale is orders of magnitude larger.

The administration will just do nothing. They need 3 maneuvers for this to drag out longer than Trump 2.

There is no intention to follow the law here.

I wager he’ll:

1. Claim to refund the money to each taxpayer with a Trump-signed check.

2. The number of checks will not total $200 B. Any reporting to the contrary will take up space from the truth about Epstein.

3. Before 2028, a loyal SuperPAC will form with hundreds of billions in dark money.

"…refund the money to each taxpayer…"

I've got receipts.

Literally. I have receipts for hundreds of dollars where the tariff is itemized (from JLCPCB, etc.)

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