Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs. The Supreme Court struck down the tariffs. Now the refund checks are coming. The U.S. government will start accepting refund claims on April 20 for $127 billion worth of tariffs the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in February. A Court of International Trade judge set the date after the government finished building a system to send each importer a single electronic payment.
More than 330,000 importers paid tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act - a 1977 law meant for national emergencies, not trade policy. The Supreme Court agreed it doesn't give a president the power to set tariffs, striking them down.
So far, 56,497 importers have finished the process to claim refunds totaling $127 billion out of the $166 billion collected before the ruling.
The government has cleared $127 billion for refunds, but the remaining $39 billion is still being sorted. The judge ordered a progress report by April 28 detailing how fast claims are moving through the system. Worth noting: some importers aren't waiting for the money. Reports show businesses have started using their expected refund payments as collateral for loans - a sign of how long the tariffs have been tying up cash that companies need.
April 20 is the launch date. The first wave of payments starts flowing back to importers who've been waiting months for money the courts said should never have been collected.
