Can they prove they didn’t pass the cost to customers?????
— CV Investments (@cv_investments) February 26, 2026
Per Grok: The refunds (plus interest) go to the importers who paid the duties to U.S. Customs—they’re the legal payers entitled to relief after the SCOTUS ruling that the IEEPA tariffs were unauthorized. The process (via Court of International Trade reliquidation) doesn’t require proving the costs weren’t passed to consumers. Justice Kavanaugh’s dissent explicitly flags this: refunds could still happen “even though some importers may have already passed on costs to consumers.” So companies could get the windfall while buyers already paid higher prices. That’s how tariff incidence and refund mechanics work legally.