He Recorded His Quest for Tariff Refunds, What Happened Explains Why Billions May Never Get Repaid
Richard Brown was walking out of a bagel shop when the news hit his phone. The Supreme Court had just struck down most of President Trump's tariffs, the same tariffs Brown had been paying for nearly a year as a small business importer. He was so stunned, he forgot how doors worked.
"I didn't realize that the person gave me my bagel, that I could leave," Brown later recorded in an audio diary he shared with NPR. "This is a win, this… Oh, man, this is, I can't— I am elated. I can't wait to— this is going to be a hot mess."
That last part turned out to be prophetic.
Brown's recorded quest to recover roughly $25,000 in tariff refunds, about 10% of his company's annual revenue, has become a case study in something trade experts are quietly alarmed about. The U.S. government promised to return more than $166 billion in illegally collected import taxes. But the system built to deliver those refunds is so labyrinthine, so Technicolor-level complicated, that thousands of businesses may simply never get their money back.
And here's the part nobody's saying loud enough: that might be exactly how some people want it.
The Day the Tariffs Fell, And the Chaos Began
Let's rewind to February 20, 2026. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that President Trump had exceeded his authority by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, IEEPA, for those who enjoy alphabet soup, to impose sweeping tariffs on imported goods. The ruling was retroactive. That meant every tariff dollar collected under that legal authority since April 2025 was, technically, illegally obtained.
The total tab? At least $166 billion, spread across roughly 330,000 importers and nearly 53 million individual shipment entries.
Business owners celebrated. Then the questions started: How do I get my money back? When? Do I need a lawyer?
The Trump administration's initial answer was, essentially: This is very complicated and could take years. Companies like Costco, FedEx, and Revlon didn't wait around, they pre-emptively filed lawsuits to stake their claims. More than 1,800 companies eventually sued for refunds in the Court of International Trade.
But Richard Brown doesn't have a legal department. He doesn't even have a customs broker on speed dial. His company, Proof Culture, is just him in Ohio and his friend Erron Combs in Virginia. Sometimes his dad helps out.
"I don't want to be a customs broker when I grow up," Brown says, laughing.
That joke would stop being funny about two weeks later.
Meet Richard Brown: The Accidental Import Specialist
Proof Culture started as a custom sneaker outfit before pivoting to selling shoe care products: laces, cedar shoe trees, storage boxes, crease protectors. They got into importing, first from China, then also Mexico, barely three years ago. Brown calls it his "express master class of importing, tariff edition".
Like most small importers, Proof Culture had cobbled together a supply chain: shipping by sea and by air, through FedEx and Amazon, relying on freight-forwarding companies arranged by Chinese suppliers. They paid the customs bills, got their inventory, and focused on actually running their business. The granular customs forms? Those were someone else's problem.
Until they weren't.
To claim a tariff refund, Brown had to become a de facto customs expert. He spent weeks digitizing old purchase orders, building an AI tool to track shipping invoices, and leaving futile voicemails with Chinese freight-forwarders for paperwork they'd never provided.
"We're not equipped to deal with this," Brown recorded in early April, exhaustion creeping into his voice. "And it is a shame that the government recognizes that they're not equipped to deal with it to the extent that they're now passing it on to us. This wasn't my problem. And now you're telling me if I want my money back, figure it out. That sucks".
I mean... yeah. It does suck. And here's where the story gets genuinely infuriating.
The $166 Billion Question, Why Refunds Aren't Automatic
You'd think the refund process would be simple, right? The government collected the money. The court said it was illegal. The government should just... give it back.
But here's the catch, and it's a big one: refunds are not automatic. Not even close.
The Supreme Court ruling didn't order a refund process. It didn't even mention refunds. Instead, a separate case before the Court of International Trade, overseen by Judge Richard Eaton, forced the government's hand. Judge Eaton ordered Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to issue refunds, and then gave them time to build a system because CBP said its existing infrastructure couldn't handle it.
The result was CAPE, the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries portal, launched on April 20, 2026. And from day one, it came with fine print that excluded a massive chunk of the businesses it was supposed to serve.
The electronic payment trap: CBP will only issue refunds electronically through its Automated Clearinghouse (ACH) system. As of mid-April, only about 57,000 of the 330,000 eligible importers, roughly 17%, had registered for ACH. That means more than 270,000 businesses were locked out of the refund process before they could even file a claim.
Let that sink in. The government made electronic registration a prerequisite for getting your money back, then watched as 83% of the people owed money remained unregistered.
Inside the CAPE Portal (Or: Why "Just Upload a Spreadsheet" Isn't So Simple)
On paper, the CAPE process sounds manageable: importers submit a CSV file through CBP's ACE portal listing the entry numbers for each imported shipment, and if validated, refunds arrive in 60 to 90 days.
In practice? "It's been a nightmare," says Alexandra Fine, CEO of Dame Products, who spent roughly ten hours on hold trying to resolve a login issue, and finally got a callback at 2:30 in the morning, which she somehow answered.
Sarah Wells, founder of Sarah Wells Bags in Virginia, discovered that CBP's own CSV template wouldn't download or open correctly on launch day. She only succeeded because she'd attended a CBP webinar the week before and knew how to build the file from scratch. Most small business owners don't attend government webinars. They're busy running their businesses.
Even when the portal works, there's a second layer of complexity: you must be the "importer of record", the entity that actually paid the customs bill. If you're a retailer who bought from a distributor, or a consumer who paid higher prices because of tariffs, you have no claim at all.
Three Reasons Tariff Refund Claims Get Rejected
As of April 26, roughly 15% of all tariff refund claims had been rejected, about 11,250 out of more than 75,000 submissions. And trade attorneys say these denials cluster around three maddeningly preventable categories:
1. Data Formatting Issues
The CAPE portal expects a pristine CSV file containing only 11-digit entry numbers. No formulas. No extra columns. No formatting flourishes. If you treat the template like a normal spreadsheet, adding notes, tweaking the layout, saving it in the wrong format, the system spits it back at you.
2. File Corruption
Some files get corrupted during editing, especially if they pass through multiple programs or operating systems. CBP's advice? Download the template directly from the ACE system and handle it gently, like a soufflé made of data.
3. Identity Mismatches
The person submitting the claim must exactly match the "importer of record" on the original customs entries. If a business changed its registration details, uses a different email, or has a customs broker submit the claim without proper authorization, the whole thing bounces.
These aren't insurmountable problems. But every rejection means days or weeks of delay, and for a small business owner already juggling tax season, inventory management, and actual life, that's time they simply don't have.
Who's Being Left Behind
Here's where the story shifts from frustrating to structurally alarming.
CBP data revealed that in the early stages of the refund process, just 26,664 importers had signed up for the electronic payment system, and those registrants alone accounted for $120 billion in expected refunds. That means about 8% of all importers had paid more than 72% of all IEEPA tariffs, averaging $4.5 million each.
The remaining 300,000-plus importers? They're fighting over the scraps, roughly $46 billion in total, averaging about $150,000 per firm. Or, in many cases, much less than that.
"Smaller importers may not have the resources to coordinate with their customs brokers setting them up in CAPE," Mark Ludwikowski, a trade attorney at Clark Hill, told Talking Points Memo. "They are often at a disadvantage not because they lack legal rights, but because the refund process assumes a level of administrative capacity that many of them do not have in-house".
Some small businesses have already closed entirely, crushed by the tariffs before refunds ever materialized. Others may never file because the math doesn't work: spend dozens of hours hunting down paperwork and wrestling with government portals to recover a few thousand dollars... or just take the loss and move on.
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank hardly known for defending government inefficiency, was blunt in its assessment: "Intentionally or not, the federal government will likely keep tens of billions of dollars it should have returned to importers months ago, and that it promised US courts it would return if they invalidated the tariffs at issue".
And every day of delay isn't just frustrating, it's expensive. Cato economists estimate that interest on the delayed refunds is accruing at roughly $20 million per day, or about $700 million per month.
What Small Businesses Can Actually Do Right Now
Okay. Breathe. If you're a small business owner reading this and feeling that creeping dread in your stomach, here's what you need to do, practically and immediately.
Step 1: Figure Out If You're Even the Importer of Record
This is the single biggest filter. If you paid customs bills directly? You're probably eligible. If you bought through a distributor or your supplier handled all the import logistics? You probably aren't. Check your paperwork.
Step 2: Register for the ACH Electronic Payment System
You need an ACE portal account and ACH enrollment. This takes time, start now. Go to ace.cbp.dhs.gov and begin the registration process. If you need help, call CBP's help desk. Yes, the hold times are brutal. Yes, you should still do it.
Step 3: Gather Your Entry Numbers (All 11 Digits of Them)
You'll need a list of every import entry on which you paid IEEPA tariffs, specifically Chapter 99 HTSUS numbers applied under IEEPA authority, between April 5, 2025, and February 24, 2026. If your records are incomplete, contact your customs broker immediately.
Step 4: Build Your CAPE Declaration File, Carefully
Download the CSV template directly from the ACE system. Include only the 11-digit entry numbers. No extra columns. No notes. No formatting. Save it as a .csv file and test that it opens cleanly. Then submit through the CAPE portal.
Step 5: Don't Wait for Phase 2
Only about 63% of eligible entries are covered in Phase 1. If your entries fall outside the current window, for example, if they were liquidated more than 80 days ago, start preparing your documentation now for when the next phase opens. The early bird gets the refund.
Step 6: Consider Getting Professional Help
If you're owed a significant amount, say, $50,000 or more, the cost of a trade attorney or customs consultant may pay for itself many times over just in avoided rejections and resubmissions.
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