SEATTLE – A consumer-protection lawsuit from Seattle-based law firm Hagens Berman accuses Amazon.com of collecting funds from millions of its customers in response to since invalidated tariffs, passing the buck on rising costs through higher prices.
My suppliers show a tariff surcharge on my invoices. I charge a tariff surcharge on my products so the consumer knows where that cost comes from and also knows that I can remove that charge from the quote if the tariffs get pulled back before they sign a contract. Note that a surcharge is not a tariff. It just indicated the cause for the increased price. Sure the consumer paid the cost in the end, but so did the retailer, the distributor and the importer. Unless a refund trickles down from the importer, who is the only party that actually paid a tariff, which is never going to happen, then no one is getting their money back once it’s been spent. You can sue all you want and pretend it’s setting a precedent, but you are really just wasting time and resources because you don’t understand the supply change and who is actually liable. Hell, even the importer has to sue the government to get that tariff money back before they would even remotely be liable to pass it down the chain. More than likely they’ll just pocket the money if the government voluntarily gives it back (unlikely) because passing it down the chain would be a logistical nightmare. I guess the real answer here is that every company that tried to be transparent about the tariff costs should have just lumped it into the cost of goods so it was invisible to the consumer. You can’t sue for something you can’t prove is there. Punish the honest parties while the people that profited get to keep the money anyway.
The money the companies would be getting back would be opportunity cost, not any actual money. The companies didn’t pay tariffs, the only people that do are end consumers. So if it was just about actually dollar amounts, they are just getting even more of the consumers money in the end.
What could be argued is the opportunity cost. People may have been less likely to buy the product due to increased costs. Fewer sales, less profit, etc, etc. But there is no way to get an actual number since we can’t know exactly how much they would have had.
Despite that also being a logistical nightmare, guess who is putting in a shit ton of time and resources into ensuring the rich get their money? It would be pretty easy to just do a tax credit for consumers, and likely a lot more accurate. The companies would get the money back in the end anyway, so what’s it matter.
I agree that the best way to do this would be a tax rebate. It’s a convoluted chain of credits to pass the refund back down the line the same way it was charged with no guarantee it will ever make it to the consumer in any meaningful way. Let the government be liable instead of forcing every company in the chain to take on liability. The consumer and small business will always be the loser in the chain while the lawyers get richer.
Currently, due to recent litigation, importers and companies are able to request tariff refunds. So if you paid a tariff directly, then you can request a refund and the government is required to pay you back. This is already decided and there is a refund request website.
Current lawsuits like this one are saying that Amazon requested the refund because they have the tariff receipt, and they’ll get the refund. Folks are suing Amazon because while they have the receipt, they passed on the charge, meaning they didn’t really pay the tariff in actuality. So they’re arguing that if the tariffs are illegal (already decided), and that tariff refunds are being sent out (already decided), then companies should also be required to refund their customers for the increased costs they passed along (lawsuits like this one).
It’s common sense. If a company charged 10 dollars for a product before the tariffs, charged 15 after the tariffs because it cost them 5 dollars in tariffs, then they still made the same profit after the consumer bought the product, and the consumer paid the tariff. So when a refund goes out, companies should have to return that tariff charge to the consumer. They’ll literally make the same profit and the consumer will be reimbursed then for the tariff charge they paid. This is the precedent we want to set, because otherwise consumers get screwed both ways while large companies get to pocket tariff costs. This is class warfare; working class and small business owners are losing.
My suppliers show a tariff surcharge on my invoices. I charge a tariff surcharge on my products so the consumer knows where that cost comes from and also knows that I can remove that charge from the quote if the tariffs get pulled back before they sign a contract. Note that a surcharge is not a tariff. It just indicated the cause for the increased price. Sure the consumer paid the cost in the end, but so did the retailer, the distributor and the importer. Unless a refund trickles down from the importer, who is the only party that actually paid a tariff, which is never going to happen, then no one is getting their money back once it’s been spent. You can sue all you want and pretend it’s setting a precedent, but you are really just wasting time and resources because you don’t understand the supply change and who is actually liable. Hell, even the importer has to sue the government to get that tariff money back before they would even remotely be liable to pass it down the chain. More than likely they’ll just pocket the money if the government voluntarily gives it back (unlikely) because passing it down the chain would be a logistical nightmare. I guess the real answer here is that every company that tried to be transparent about the tariff costs should have just lumped it into the cost of goods so it was invisible to the consumer. You can’t sue for something you can’t prove is there. Punish the honest parties while the people that profited get to keep the money anyway.
The money the companies would be getting back would be opportunity cost, not any actual money. The companies didn’t pay tariffs, the only people that do are end consumers. So if it was just about actually dollar amounts, they are just getting even more of the consumers money in the end.
What could be argued is the opportunity cost. People may have been less likely to buy the product due to increased costs. Fewer sales, less profit, etc, etc. But there is no way to get an actual number since we can’t know exactly how much they would have had.
Despite that also being a logistical nightmare, guess who is putting in a shit ton of time and resources into ensuring the rich get their money? It would be pretty easy to just do a tax credit for consumers, and likely a lot more accurate. The companies would get the money back in the end anyway, so what’s it matter.
I agree that the best way to do this would be a tax rebate. It’s a convoluted chain of credits to pass the refund back down the line the same way it was charged with no guarantee it will ever make it to the consumer in any meaningful way. Let the government be liable instead of forcing every company in the chain to take on liability. The consumer and small business will always be the loser in the chain while the lawyers get richer.
Currently, due to recent litigation, importers and companies are able to request tariff refunds. So if you paid a tariff directly, then you can request a refund and the government is required to pay you back. This is already decided and there is a refund request website.
Current lawsuits like this one are saying that Amazon requested the refund because they have the tariff receipt, and they’ll get the refund. Folks are suing Amazon because while they have the receipt, they passed on the charge, meaning they didn’t really pay the tariff in actuality. So they’re arguing that if the tariffs are illegal (already decided), and that tariff refunds are being sent out (already decided), then companies should also be required to refund their customers for the increased costs they passed along (lawsuits like this one).
It’s common sense. If a company charged 10 dollars for a product before the tariffs, charged 15 after the tariffs because it cost them 5 dollars in tariffs, then they still made the same profit after the consumer bought the product, and the consumer paid the tariff. So when a refund goes out, companies should have to return that tariff charge to the consumer. They’ll literally make the same profit and the consumer will be reimbursed then for the tariff charge they paid. This is the precedent we want to set, because otherwise consumers get screwed both ways while large companies get to pocket tariff costs. This is class warfare; working class and small business owners are losing.