re: Curious how we feel about corporations getting the tariff refund upwards of $166b?

Yeah I’m not sure how simple econ is lost on people. Consumers pay tariffs in the end, corporations, importers and exporters aren’t just going to eat that tax out of the goodness of their heart.

To compound matters there is an externality where domestic producers can also charge more now that the bar is higher.

You are also making claims you have not established: that businesses suffered or absorbed no losses merely because they passed some or all of the tariff cost into higher prices.

The entire purpose of a tariff is to make imported goods more expensive and discourage purchases. A business can preserve its margin per unit while still losing money through reduced sales volume, lost market share, slower inventory turnover and disrupted contracts. Raising prices does not guarantee that total revenue or profit remained unchanged.

Being owed a tariff refund proves only that the business paid the tariff to the government. It does not prove the tariff caused the business no additional losses. You would need actual evidence about sales, margins and volume to establish that.

The issue is a federal judge having control of $166B, but you will not discuss that.

Discuss? This is so because of illegal tariffs to begin with.

Just one of many fleeces over the years.

To see people arguing for corporations getting millions back is mind blowing, but expected on the internet. I will give the working people living in the “guilded age” credit. At least they were smart enough eventually to know they were getting railed by their government officials and their corporate overlords.

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I trust corporations to be more responsible with their money.

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You realize they went on an anti-white, anti-conservative rampage for the past 10 years right?

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I don’t trust the government with that money at all.

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You literally trust them with the money when it comes to them printing it and giving it to corporations that hate you.

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You honestly think corporations adjusted their price or absorbed the cost? Or do you think they passed the cost onto the consumer?

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There's no need to speculate or act as though one individual's anecdotal experience is representative of the whole. Whether any individual party chooses to absorb the tariffs are dependent on roughly the same factors that combine to determine whether a consumer buys a product: number of available substitute goods, elasticity, demand, etc.

So sure, I believe the poster above who says he absorbs them, but so what? Every market is different.

But again, no need to guess. Several studied have been done at this point. Over 90% of the tariffs have ultimately been absorbed by the US importer or the consumer. Of that 90%, about 70% have been consumers and about 30% the American importers.

As to the original question, "Curious how we feel about corporations getting the tariff refund upwards of $166b," that's easy.

The corporations were the entities who were legally required to pay the tariffs so they are the entities due a refund. If the government had collected illegal tariffs from consumers, then they would get the refund.

But the corporations "collected the tariffs" from consumers, and the transaction was completely voluntary on their part.

So consumers (not wholesalers or retailers who contracted with importers with a contract that itemized the tariff, actual consumers) are due nothing.

It's amazing to me that people really think they should or even could be.