I’m not sure what other system is even conceivably possible in the general case. There’s no straightforward universal relationship between tariffs paid by businesses and prices paid by the customers of those businesses.
There were some businesses passing the fees on directly to the end consumer via tariff implementation fees, but unless you have something like that itemized on an invoice, I believe you would be correct.
A business that passed 100% of the tariffs on to consumers via higher prices could still be worse off after getting a refund than it would have been if there never had been tariffs, if demand is elastic enough, so I’m not sure even that sort of data could resolve the question of who deserves what.
I’m not sure what other system is even conceivably possible in the general case. There’s no straightforward universal relationship between tariffs paid by businesses and prices paid by the customers of those businesses.
I think the best system would be not to allow tariffs to be illegally implemented in the first place. But I realize that’s asking a lot.
I dream of having a functional government. I know everywhere has issues, but rule by EO from a wannabe dictator is tiring.
We could at least not have taxpayers foot the bill for businesses to get free money.
Take the total tariff income, divide it by the number of people in the country, and send out the checks.
It’s the ONLY legitimate way to handle it.
That sounds fair in theory, but would not hold up as soon as the first person felt slighted and challenged those terms in court.
Let them. It’s better than “nobody will let it be fair so we won’t even try.”
There were some businesses passing the fees on directly to the end consumer via tariff implementation fees, but unless you have something like that itemized on an invoice, I believe you would be correct.
A business that passed 100% of the tariffs on to consumers via higher prices could still be worse off after getting a refund than it would have been if there never had been tariffs, if demand is elastic enough, so I’m not sure even that sort of data could resolve the question of who deserves what.