US Tariff Refund Portal to Exclude One-Third of Imports at First

An online government portal to provide refunds on tariffs struck down by the US Supreme Court will handle claims for about 63% of 53 million import entries at issue when it first launches, according to a new court filing.

A Trump administration official with US Customs and Border Protection told a judge in a declaration submitted Tuesday that the government won’t be able to process refund demands for the remaining one-third of entries right away, and didn’t offer a specific time frame for rolling out later phases.

The agency has previously told a judge on the US Court of International Trade that the US is working to have the first phase of the new refund system ready by mid-April.

Read More: Judge Orders US to Stop Calculating Importers’ IEEPA Tariffs

The government has estimated that importers paid more than $166 billion in tariffs under President Donald Trump’s executive orders that a majority of justices declared unlawful in February. Officials have committed to paying interest on any refunds as well.

The first phase of the administration’s refund process will be able to accept claims for tariffs that haven’t become final yet, according to the government.

Tariffs typically become “final” more than a year after goods enter the country, although so-called “informal” tariffs for low-value shipments can reach that status sooner.

Lawyers for companies that paid Trump’s contested tariffs recently raised concerns in court about refund delays for these “final” duties. The lawyers said that more import entries will keep automatically hitting the final stage unless companies file protests — a potentially costly and time-consuming enterprise, they argued.

The US trade court has put Judge Richard Eaton in charge of managing the tariff refund litigation. Earlier this month, Eaton ordered the government to begin the process of recalculating tariffs to remove the levies struck down by the Supreme Court, but his initial rulings didn’t cover “final” tariffs. After companies raised the issue last week, he revised and expanded his order to include those as well.

Brandon Lord, executive director of the Trade Programs Directorate at the customs agency, wrote in the latest declaration on Tuesday that to meet their original deadlines for the first phase, they could not include those “final” duties for now.

Lord wrote that as of this week, the main claim portal was 85% finished and other parts of the system were between 60-80% complete.

He also highlighted actions taken by the Trump administration to require federal payments be made electronically, including tariff refunds. Lord wrote that more than 26,000 importers who paid $120 billion in the challenged tariffs were registered to receive electronic refunds so far.

An attorney for the filtration system company whose refund lawsuit has become the de facto lead case for the refund court action did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case is Atmus Filtration Inc. v. United States, 26-cv-1259, US Court of International Trade (New York).

To contact the reporter on this story:
Zoe Tillman in Washington at ztillman2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net

Elizabeth Wasserman, Steve Stroth

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