A Trump administration official with U.S. Customs and Border Protection told a judge in a\u00a0declaration submitted March 31 that the government won\u2019t be able to process refund demands for the remaining one-third of entries right away, and didn\u2019t offer a specific time frame for rolling out later phases.\u00a0\n \t \t\t<\/p>\n
The agency has previously told a judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade that the U.S. is working to have the first phase of the new refund system ready by mid-April.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The government has estimated that importers paid more than $166 billion in tariffs under President Donald Trump\u2019s executive orders that a majority of justices\u00a0declared unlawful\u00a0in February. Officials have committed to paying interest on any refunds as well.\n \t\t<\/p>\n
The first phase of the administration\u2019s refund process will be able to accept claims for tariffs that haven\u2019t become final yet, according to the government.<\/p>\n
Tariffs typically become \u201cfinal\u201d more than a year after goods enter the country, although so-called \u201cinformal\u201d tariffs for low-value shipments can reach that status sooner.<\/p>\n
Tariff-refunds<\/a><\/p>\n Lawyers for companies that paid Trump\u2019s contested tariffs\u00a0recently raised concerns\u00a0in court about refund delays for these \u201cfinal\u201d duties. The lawyers said that more import entries will keep automatically hitting the final stage unless companies file protests \u2014 a potentially costly and time-consuming enterprise, they argued.<\/p>\n The U.S. trade court has put Judge Richard Eaton in charge of managing the tariff refund litigation. Earlier this month, Eaton\u00a0ordered the government\u00a0to begin the process of recalculating tariffs to remove the levies struck down by the Supreme Court, but his initial rulings didn\u2019t cover \u201cfinal\u201d tariffs. After companies raised the issue last week, he revised and expanded his order to include those as well.<\/p>\n Brandon Lord, executive director of the Trade Programs Directorate at the customs agency, wrote in the latest declaration on March 31 that to meet their original deadlines for the first phase, they could not include those \u201cfinal\u201d duties for now.<\/p>\n Lord wrote that as of this week, the main claim portal was 85% finished and other parts of the system were 60%-80% complete.<\/p>\n
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