The IEEPA Tariff Refunds Series

Part I. Who Keeps the Money, and What Comes with It

The Issue

In Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, the Supreme Court held that the tariffs the president imposed in April 2025 exceeded his IEEPA authority.[i] US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) collected on the order of USD 166 billion in IEEPA duties from roughly 330,000 importers across more than 53 million entries.[ii] Around 330,000 importers had paid across more than 53 million entries. CBP will pay the money only to the importer of record: the company named on the customs paperwork.

Yet importers rarely absorbed the tariff. They raised prices, billed a surcharge, or pushed the cost to a supplier or customer. The company receiving the refund is therefore often not the one that paid. The practical question is not whether the money is coming back, but who keeps it—and what claiming it exposes. The first half is already being litigated and, more often, negotiated: more than 100 putative class actions have been filed by customers seeking a share. The second is less discussed and, for some importers, the larger number.

What Importers Should Know

Each issue relating to these refunds has its own timeline, decision-maker, and potential ramifications. Because decisions on refund allocation can affect tax timing, accounting treatment, and later litigation or negotiation posture, a coordinated strategy across these issues is essential.

• Whether the company told customers, investors, or reporters that prices were rising because of tariffs. FedEx created an explicit, itemized written record that directly tied specific price increases and surcharges to the IEEPA tariffs.[iii] Other major logistics integrators like UPS and DHL—which also created explicit paper trails itemizing specific tariff surcharges during the duties’ enforcement—have launched dedicated tracking portals to pass back recovered funds to customers on a rolling basis as CBP processes their reimbursements.
• If the money is actually coming. CBP is paying in phases, and the biggest driver of recovery is which phase an importer’s entries fall into. The first two cover most of the dollars and should pay readily. The rest were finalized long ago, and there the government maintains that a court order is required.[iv]
• When the money arrives, and in which period. The refund is taxable when received, and promising to repay a customer does not defer that. Taxes come due before the money goes out, often a period earlier. Reporting runs the same way: the repayment obligation books before the gain, so results tend to dip first.[v]
• Whether the pass-through was visible or embedded. This is the sharpest dividing line, cutting across industries rather than tracking them. Some companies billed tariffs as a discrete invoice line—shippers and logistics providers most conspicuously, but also many industrial suppliers and direct-to-consumer sellers. Others folded the cost into a shelf or unit price—the pattern in retail and grocery. An itemized surcharge is easy to trace, strengthening a customer’s claim but also making the company’s records precise. An embedded increase is harder to attribute and equally hard to disprove without pricing analysis. What matters is whether the company can reconstruct what it did—and said, since statements tying price increases to tariffs are now a record available to any claimant.
• What the contract says—and does not. For companies selling business-to-business— in industries like automotive, aerospace, chemicals, medical devices, and food distribution—the supply agreement decides most outcomes. Nearly all addressed a new duty appearing; very few addressed one going away. Sections 232 and 301 duties are unaffected, so only part of the burden is reversed.
• Whether the importer of record bore the economic risk. Where a forwarder, broker, or delivered-duty-paid seller is named the importer of record, the refund goes to a company that bore none of the cost. Internally, groups often import through one entity while another absorbs the expense—a transfer-pricing fix that takes longer than expected.
• What must be decided and disclosed, and by whom. For large and public companies, the refund may be significant to cash and invisible in earnings, yet disclosure and claims readiness stay live regardless of materiality. For midsized and sponsor-owned companies, it may be the largest balance-sheet event since the duties were imposed. For smaller importers, the constraint is administrative: CBP registration, an active account, and payment enrollment are prerequisites. The thinner the margin, the more completely the tariff was passed along.

What Importers and Their Advisors Can Do to Prepare

Importers and their advisors should use the period before refunds are paid—or, where refunds have already begun to flow, before positions become entrenched—to proactively assess the issues most likely to arise in light of their commercial arrangements, contractual relationships, and overall risk profile. Early preparation can materially improve a party’s ability to preserve relevant evidence, protect its legal and commercial positions, anticipate competing claims, and avoid decisions that may later prove difficult or costly to unwind. Because the issues surrounding a refund may proceed on different timelines and involve different decision-makers, a coordinated approach is important. Depending on the circumstances, importers and their advisors should consider taking the following actions:

• Sort entries. Distinguish amounts that are reasonably expected to be recovered from those that remain contingent, and base cash forecasting only on the former. Older entries for which no timely filing or preservation step was taken should be treated as uncertain—not merely delayed—and excluded from near-term forecasts.
• Verify before you certify. Before submitting a claim, test the origin, classification, and valuation of every relevant entry. Treat any anomaly as a separate issue requiring its own legal analysis, counsel where appropriate, and timeline. This is among the most easily skipped steps—and potentially among the costliest.
• Confirm the administrative basics immediately. Verify registration, account status, and payment enrollment at the outset. These prerequisites can determine whether an otherwise valid refund can actually be processed and paid.
• Calendar every deadline with a named owner. Track protest periods, applicable limitations periods, and court-imposed deadlines, account for the relevant legal parameters.[vi] Confirm the proper sequencing where both litigation and a protest are pending or where reconciliation procedures are involved.
• Rebuild the pass-through record before taking a position. First review pricing decisions, surcharge line items, invoices, and relevant public statements. A position announced before the underlying record is understood can be difficult to revise.
• Read the contracts before announcing anything. Supply agreements often determine the practical allocation of commercial and logistical consequences. A policy position adopted before those contractual provisions are reviewed may be difficult to implement.
• Model tax and accounting together, and paper live deals. Monitor timing differences, states that depart from the federal rule, and any resulting payment obligations. For pending transactions, specify in the governing agreement how any refund will be allocated. Document key decisions contemporaneously: a well-developed record can support a future claim, facilitate an audit, and demonstrate the basis for the company’s position to regulators.
• Consider selective price reductions. Companies with sufficient scale and financial flexibility might choose to pass through some tariff refunds to customers in the form of lower prices. Walmart, for example, has announced plans to use approximately $2.9 billion in tariff refunds to reduce prices and help make everyday goods more affordable. Similarly, e.l.f. Beauty is reinvesting its $50 million duty refund into price cuts across its lineup. Conversely, other large retailers have been less explicit. Target has reported on the order of USD 1 billion in tariff refunds and has not tied those receipts to customer price reductions as directly as Walmart has; some of the funds appear to have been retained for margin and other corporate uses. In the current affordability environment, sharing some tariff-related savings with customers may strengthen goodwill and customer loyalty. The appropriate approach will vary by company, sector, competitive conditions, and financial capacity.

How BRG Can Help

BRG has experienced professionals who work with clients to analyze entry and pricing data, build processes for handling incoming claims, support accounting and finance teams on recognition and reporting, and provide litigation and expert support if disputes proceed. We advise importers, their counsel, and their investors across these areas.

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[i] No. 24-1287 (US February 20, 2026) (6-3).

[ii] USD 166 billion is an estimate of IEEPA duties collected, drawn from CBP announcements and related court filings as of mid-2026. It is not the amount already paid out. As of mid-September, CBP reported that Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) had accepted about USD 135 billion in potential and certified refunds, of which about USD 122 billion had been sent to the US Treasury for disbursement. Figures continue to move with processing, offsets, missing ACH details, and the treatment of finally liquidated entries.

[iii] In addition to standard customs disclaimers regarding mandatory duty collections, FedEx provided detailed invoice line items explicitly naming and itemizing specific IEEPA surcharges, creating an audit trail connecting the higher charges directly to these tariffs.

[iv] The CAPE timeline: Phase 1 opened April 20, 2026; Phase 2 on June 29; Phase 3 will open on October 6. Phase 3 will cover finally liquidated entries of Court of International Trade (CIT) plaintiffs with a court-ordered reliquidation of who submitted an importer-of-record number by July 30, 2026. The finally liquidated pool has been estimated at roughly USD 11.4 billion.

[v] See 19 USC § 1505 (interest); IRC § 111 (tax benefit rule).

[vi] See 19 USC § 1514 (protest of CBP decisions, generally within 180 days of liquidation); 28 USC § 1581 (CIT jurisdiction, including residual jurisdiction under § 1581(i)); 28 USC § 2636 (time for commencing a CIT action).