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Comment by Jeremy1026 | Hacker News Reader

> probably

Hah, we are 100% not getting our money back. And the higher, tariff level, prices aren't going to go back down either.

It is almost as if this was a planned wealth transfer that was immensely succesful.

The "Importer of Record" gets the refund. I read that a large fraction of those importer of record are Chinese companies.

According to Ryan Peterson, the CEO of Flexport, there was a large increase in the number of foreign companies registered as the "importer of record" in the US as a result of the tariffs. On the Odd Lots podcast, he stated this was due to fraud: companies set up subsidiary corps in the US, which then imported goods from their parent/sibling/related companies at much lower prices than market value. Because tariffs are a percentage of the value, this made them lower. Then the subsidiary could turn around and sell it in the US at market rates.

Yes, but when the product costs went up to cover their fees who paid that? We did. So the "Importer of Record" will (maybe) get a refund from the government, while also getting the higher prices paid to them from the distributors/consumers.

yes scotus hates poors and is complete bought out by the rich

read from where? Because over 92% of tariff costs were born by domestic importers. Thats american companies who then offload that tax through higher purchasing costs.

https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/02/who-is...

That article doesn't even mention nonresident importers (NRIs). The percentage that are NRIs is not public information but it is believed to have grown during this trade conflict.

What got my attention on this was this HN comment by rstuart4133:

"There are Non-Resident Importers, which are foreign companies that import goods into the USA, but do not have a presence in the United States. About 15% of USA imports come through NRIs. For them this reversal sets up a true irony. Trump effectively forced US citizens to pay more the imported goods. He thought that money would go to the USA treasury. Now the US treasury has to pay it back, so it is a free gift to the exporting countries. Like China. Truly delicious."

We have Chinese businesses that are domestic importers.

(To some extent, this was to facilitate tariff fraud. As an American business buying abroad, your foreign supplier would take over responsibility for importing into the US, and then you could pretend you were unaware it was fraudulently undervaluing its imports to lower effective tariffs paid. Any possible consequences for the foreign entity getting caught doing fraud are minimal.)

Yeah, most of us absolutely are not getting our money back.

The importers pay the tariffs, and they might get a refund, but it's unlikely they can distribute the money back to the people who they passed the price increase onto.

Imagine I imported 1 ton of rice and paid the tariff. Then I split that ton of rice into 2000 one pound bags and sold them to two super markets, with a higher price accounting for the tariff. Then one super market decided to absorb the price from their margins and sell it at the same price as before to avoid price shocks. Can I track down the other 1000 purchasers who paid a higher price? Is it even worth it?

Not only can’t you track down the 1,000 rice buyers, you don’t have any legal obligation to, so you 100% wouldn’t. (Not speaking of “you” just the general case of all importers who get refunds).

The other important point is that those 2000 one-pound bags sold, so the market accepted the new higher price. Even after the tariffs are removed, the higher prices are here to stay.

If you wanted to pass the refund on wouldn't the most sensible way be to pass it on to the two supermarkets since they were the actual buyers from you?

If the supermarket that raised prices wants to pass that on to their 1000 buyers that would be for them to deal with, not you.

I think it's practically impossible, and like you said, even worse prices are not going back down. Companies tested elasticity and most of them will increase revenue since the pricing is generalized, all competitors did it at once.

Did they actually raise prices, though? I haven't noticed any significant jumps; my understanding was that they were absorbing (for the most part) the tariffs for the time being, but planned to raise prices in the near future.

Tariffs don't work like that.

These are taxes that businesses have to pay and as a result, they pass on to the consumer.

Larger companies have some room (in some cases) to absorb some of these costs. While smaller companies do not. These can literally put people out of business overnight.

Here is a specific example: https://nypost.com/2025/04/08/us-news/idaho-business-owner-c...

Average family paid 1000 more last year due to tariffs. I definitely noticed things that jumped in price.

A large cap company I totally dont work at paid 4% of revenue in tariffs last year. Our bonuses were cut in half. I dont have visibility into our customer pricing. It is fucking obscene how stupid this tax is. And all for what? So billionaires can get a bit richer? How did this help us, like at all???

Judge actions by their outcomes, not by their stated purpose.

POSIWID, the Purpose Of a System Is What It Does. A quick way to cut through bullshit and "But I meant for X to do Y"

All this fuckery makes it hard to keep track of financial inflows and outflows, which in turn makes it easy to commit graft and corruption. Especially coupled with the forced retirement of those principled people formerly in bureaucratic positions, and the lack of consequences for lying and scheming on behalf of the kleptocracy.

Source?

Joint Economic Committee a good enough source? https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/democrats/2026/2...

Or Tax Foundation? https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/trump-tariffs...

Look at the CPI chart and draw a trend line ignoring recent years. You'll see we're living under 2034 price levels currently.

It depends on if one thinks 10-20 percent is significant. Do you cook your own food - some food items are imported during USA winter months and those items went up noticeably, also items that are not grown/harvested in significant quantities in USA went up. The only things I did not see a price increase were US sourced oatmeal, rice and flour, stuff where they are selling stuff that could be from before tariff times. Coffee went up due to bad harvests but the tariffs added to that, and now that harvests are back to normal, prices haven't gone back down commensurately.

I get more or less the same items from the grocery store every week. My grocery store shows me purchases going back a year.

3/9/25 - 45 items - $178.98

3/15/25 - 40 items - $187.13

3/22/25 - 59 items - $315.29

3/29/25 - 45 items - $131.36

...

2/14/25 - 48 items - $238.15

2/21/25 - 17 items - $117.49 (used $45 in coupons from store loyalty points, actual cost $162.49)

2/28/25 - 27 items - $165.27

My grocery bill definitely is feeling it, now is it 100% tariffs, probably not. But research points to it being some what related to tariffs [1,2,3] You'll notice in the most recent shops, I have been trying to skip the non-essentials when possible to keep my bill lower.

I don't have any other regular purchases with history to look back on. It's not like I replace all my consumer electronics every 6 months-1 year. Closest thing that I have to consistent historical data is 3D printer filament, which has gone from $15.99 to $16.99 on Amazon for my brand of choice from April 2025 to my most recent order last week.

[1] https://taxfoundation.org/blog/trump-tariffs-food-prices/

[2] https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/state-us-tariffs-june-17...

[3] https://www.edelmanfinancialengines.com/education/life-event...

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