Should we all be getting tariff refunds right now?

Maureen Thorson (0:01)

This is Planet Money, from NPR.

Kenny Malone (0:06)

Shouldn't we all be getting tariff refunds right now? Because I have not received one, even though I, and likely you, listener, paid more in general for goods as a US consumer because the companies selling us those goods had to pay tariffs. And now, a ton of those tariffs have been struck down by the Supreme Court. The US government has started to pay billions in tariff refunds to companies who again passed along tariffs to us. So they get the tariff refunds even though they made us pay tariffs.

Sometimes they made us pay those tariffs indirectly or just partially by baking them into higher prices. But sometimes, as is the fateful case at the center of today's episode, companies flat out told us, here's the tariff, you pay it. Do you remember where you at your desk? Like paint as much a picture of when you go through the process of buying this.

This is going to be the soap opera part.

Amy Choi (0:59)

OK, I was honestly probably in my bed just scrolling.

Kenny Malone (1:07)

This is Planet Money listener, Amy Choi. And OK, being on a phone in bed is not obviously a soap opera scene. However, we here at Planet Money would argue that tariffs have turned even the most mundane parts of our lives into a slow burning saga that may happen in small ways but really do add up to an economic drama of historic proportions. It's easy to miss. It plays out in tiny ways, but we should notice them. And that is why from time to time, we will force the spotlight of a soapy melodrama onto something like, you know, Amy Choi sitting in bed, scrolling and scrolling. Not necessarily shopping, but then she sees the email.

Amy Choi (1:52)

The email says that, hey, the Playdate is back in stock.

Kenny Malone (1:56)

The Playdate is a very small handheld video game console that is not made by any of the famous video game companies. I don't want to call it a modern hipster game boy, but it is a small batch, pricey retro-styled handheld video game device that sells out all the time. Until last year, at the height of the tariffs, Amy got the email. Playdate was back in stock. And you think what?

Amy Choi (2:24)

Um, you know, I'm thinking, hey, you know, I completely forgot that this thing existed, but it's cute. There's probably quite a few games, you know, on the catalog now.

Let's give it a shot.

Kenny Malone (2:37)

Amy goes to check out Playdate Console, $229, cover that makes it look like a pizza box, $20, tax for California where she lives, $24.28.

Amy Choi (2:49)

And I have a line item here for tariffs at $14.02.

Kenny Malone (2:55)

Amy thinks, all right, I'll pay the tariffs.

Amy Choi (2:58)

I think as consumers, we sort of, we put a lot of trust in these companies, right? When we buy something, we're like, you know what? If they say I owe $14.02 in tariffs, then I must owe $14.02 on the tariffs, right?

Kenny Malone (3:11)

Amy didn't know it, but she was about to become the main character in The Days of Our Tariffs.

SPEAKER_4 (3:22)

Like the sands through the economy, so are the days of our tariffs.

Kenny Malone (3:27)

Hello and welcome to Planet Money. Today's episode, Refunds and Regrets. Could a tiny video game system be the companion Amy Choi had longed for, or could it be the beginning of betrayal? We will get an unusually intimate look from inside the company that passed their tariff along to Amy and their decision about whether or not to also pass their refund along to her. Plus, why applying for your own personal refund is, uh, yeah, it's a whole mess, but you may have options. We'll walk you through them after the break.

If I were in charge of tariff refunds, I would set up an official website with one of those giant fundraising thermometer graphs, and every day it would get a little less and less full of red until all the tariff money has been paid back. But there isn't that. Instead, the US government has to make these occasional filings with the Court of International Trade, which I've been pulling regularly to give me a glimpse into how refunds are going. And the last one I could find said that as of early September, $122 billion of tariff refunds had been paid back.

To which companies? To how many companies? It doesn't say. But what I can say is that about $200,000 of refund money is making its way back to the company that makes the Playdate video game console. Not because it was in the filing or anything, because I asked them. How do I say your name, by the way?