420? Don't tell Elon.
From Reuters, April 14:
President Donald Trump's administration plans to launch next Monday the system it will use for issuing refunds to American importers for $166 billion the companies paid in tariffs that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in February as unlawful.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a court filing on Tuesday that it has completed the development of the initial phase of the refund system, known as CAPE. The system will consolidate refunds so importers will receive one electronic payment, with interest when applicable, rather than processing refunds on an entry-by-entry basis.
Agency official Brandon Lord made the declaration in the filing with the New York-based Court of International Trade. The agency disclosed the CAPE launch date in a separate announcement on Friday.
The Supreme Court ruled that Trump overstepped his authority in imposing sweeping global tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 law meant for use in national emergencies.
Tuesday's filing said that as of April 9 some 56,497 importers had completed the process to receive electronic refunds for tariffs affected by the court's ruling, an amount totaling $127 billion....
....MUCH MORE
Talk about a windfall for the importers! Any of the tariff amounts that they passed along to their customers will be pure profit unless they also pass the refunds along.
Akin to Goldman Sachs collecting on their AIG credit default swaps and having the underlying debt made good when the galaxy brains made AIG and 80% subsidiary of the U.S. Treasury during the Great Financial Crisis.
As the hooker said in a slightly different context, "I got it, I sell it, I still got it."
Or something.
