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Small businesses fear they will be the biggest losers when it comes to the emergency tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court – and are demanding they get refunds pronto.
A coalition of 800 of them has called for “full, fast and automatic” refunds after the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling against President Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose his “Liberation Day” tariffs.
The court was silent on how importers who already paid the tariffs would get their money back, while Trump said a legal fight would go on for years – even as he railed against justices who ruled against him and slapped on a global 10% tariff which he later upped to 15%.
Andrea Englisis, president of Long Island-based wine and spirits importer Athenee Importers & Distributors LTD, which brings in booze from Greece and Cyprus, estimates she has paid the feds $400,000 in duties since the tariffs took hold last year.
“I would say that I’ve given the government a $400,000 interest-free loan for a year,” she told The Post Saturday.
“I would like to see my money come back. I don’t think they’re going to make it remotely easy for small businesses like mine to be able to get our money back.”
She has held off on hiring and has stopped importing higher-end wines from the Greek island of Santorini since the prices get jacked up too high when they land in New York.
“I just don’t bother, because A: there’s no more market right now, and B: I just didn’t want to have to get
stuck with that tax bill,” she said.
The lobbying coalition We Pay the Tariffs hailed the ruling but said it’s meaningless without providing relief to the businesses that already paid tariffs of up to $200 million.
The group wrote the president and Congress saying they “cannot afford to hire lawyers, navigate complex claims processes, or spend months filing paperwork to recover money that never should have been collected” in light of the ruling, which Trump trashed as an overreach.
One thing the letter doesn’t say anything about is finding a way to return cash to the consumers who already bought the products. For booze, importers say the best they can do is pass on any recouped funds as a discount to distributors.
Trump complained at the White House Friday that the Court did not explain how the tariffs it ruled unconstitutional should be returned. “They take months and months to write an opinion and they don’t even discuss that point,” he groused.
“I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years,” he continued.
Asked if the government would pay back refunds, Trump predicted an even longer court fight. “It’s not discussed. We’ll end up being in court for the next five years,” he said.
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