U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has told the U.S. Court of International Trade that it is preparing a system that will be ready to process refunds on billions of dollars of illegally collected tariffs in 45 days without requiring importers to sue, reports the Guardian.
Brandon Lord, a top official at CBP, said in a filing to the court on March 6 that the total sum held in relation to such tariffs was estimated to be approximately $166 billion.
The declaration came as government lawyers were meeting with a federal trade judge to hammer out a process for returning the money to about 330,000 importers.
The supreme court ruled on February 20 that a 1977 law designed to address national emergencies did not empower President Donald Trump to impose most of the tariffs he introduced last year.
Richard Eaton, a judge of the U.S. Court of International Trade in Manhattan on March 4 told CBP it must start paying back importers using its existing systems – with interest – in an order covering all affected importers, not just those who had taken their cases to court.
“Customs knows how to do this,” Eaton told a court hearing on March 4. He said the agency should be able to issue refunds on its existing system, by which importers are regularly refunded when they are found to have overpaid initially.
When goods are brought into the U.S., an importer pays an estimated amount that is eventually finalized a little over 10 months later, in a process called liquidation. Eaton said CBP should simply finalize the entry cost on shipments without the tariff. “They do it every day. They liquidate entries and make refunds,” he said.
Lord said in his filing on March 6 that more than 330,000 importers have made a total of over 53 million entries “in which they have deposited or paid duties imposed pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.” He said the new refunds process would “require minimal submission from importers.”