The US government will be unable to process roughly a third of tariff refund requests – worth about $55 billion – when its online system goes live, according to a court filing this week.
After the Supreme Court in February struck down a key swath of President Trump’s tariffs without providing guidance on refunds, the government announced plans to launch an online portal for refund requests by mid-April.
But the site will initially only be able to handle 63% of roughly 53 million claims, Brandon Lord, a US Customs and Border Protection official, wrote in a Tuesday filing with the US Court of International Trade.
In order to meet the original April deadline, the first phase of the site will prioritize only duties that have not become “final” yet, a term that typically applies to imported goods after a year, according to the filing.
Customs officials did not provide a timeline for when those finalized tariffs will also be processed.
Importers paid an estimated $166 billion in tariffs that were overturned by the Supreme Court. The government has also pledged to pay interest on the levy refunds.
As of this week, the main refund portal is roughly 85% done, and other parts of the system are about 60% to 80% finished, Lord wrote in the filing.
Tariff refunds may take up to 45 days to review and process once the new portal launches, he added.
The majority of refunds will be issued electronically, except in special circumstances in which other payment methods are necessary.
More than 26,000 importers have already registered online to request $120 billion in refunds, Lord wrote in the filing.
Work on the tariff refund system began after the Supreme Court in February ruled that Trump exceeded his presidential authority by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose sweeping import taxes.
Among the many tariffs overturned by the ruling are a 10% baseline tax on all imports and duties of 10%, 25% and 35% on goods from China, Mexico and Canada, respectively – leaving the Trump administration on the hook for tens of billions of dollars in refunds to traders.
At a fundraiser for the National Republican Congressional Committee last week, Trump lashed out at two of his Supreme Court nominees that ruled against him in the benchmark tariff case.
“And the Supreme Court, that’s right, of the United States cost our country — all they needed was a sentence — our country hundreds of billions of dollars, and they couldn’t care less,” Trump said.
“Not that it matters — doesn’t matter at all — but two of the people that voted for that I appointed, and they sicken me,” he went on. “They sicken me ’cause they are bad for our country.”
The president was referring to Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, who voted against the White House in the 6-3 ruling.
The White House quickly replaced some of the overturned tariffs with new import taxes using other trade legislation, and launched investigations under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which could lead to more levies.
The Supreme Court ruling did not impact certain tariffs on automotives, furniture, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and steel and aluminum.
