The Question

The Supreme Court's ruling created a $175 billion accounting event. Importers that paid tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act between January 2025 and the Court's decision are entitled to refunds. The federal government has stood up a Customs and Border Protection portal to process them.

On May 12, a court filing confirmed the first wave has cleared: $35.5 billion issued to importers, with interest, across more than 8 million import entries. About 20% of the projected $175 billion total. The refund is no longer a future event. It is a present one.

That refund flows back through corporate balance sheets — not consumer bank accounts. The companies that paid the tariffs are the ones eligible to apply. The households that absorbed the tariffs in higher prices have no direct mechanism for getting their money back.

On April 24, Congressman Steven Horsford (NV-04), backed by Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep. Yvette Clarke and the broader CBC, sent accountability letters to ten major U.S. companies. The letter asked six questions, including how each company accounted for tariff costs, whether those costs were passed to consumers or small suppliers, and how the refund — when it lands — will be distributed. The selection criteria were specific: top tariff-paying retailers consumers shop with directly, plus carriers that served as importers of record on behalf of millions of customers.

The Matrix

Here is what BDI's research surfaced from each of the ten CBC letter recipients' public disclosures, as of May 13, 2026. The bottom three rows — Apple, General Motors, and Ford — are not on the CBC list but BDI tracked their separately disclosed refund postures (or, in Apple's case, the reporting that they have chosen to forgo) alongside the CBC's targets.

The matrix breaks five ways:

• Refunding customersUPS, FedEx, Costco, DHL — four of the ten CBC recipients have publicly committed to return refund value to customers, through customer refunds, lower prices, or facilitated filings.
• Booked as company benefitGM ($500M as profit-forecast boost) and Ford ($1.3B projected as company benefit) — neither on the CBC list, both disclosing the refund as a corporate financial line item with no public pass-through commitment.
• Forgoing under Trump pressureApple and Amazon — reportedly sidestepping refunds entirely to avoid being publicly named by the Trump administration, a third path neither helping consumers nor adding to corporate balance sheets.
• Sued — alleged double recoveryWalmart faces a $10.2B class-action complaint alleging the company passed tariff costs to shoppers and is now collecting the refund. Allegations are unproven.
• No disclosure foundHome Depot, Lowe's, Target, Best Buy — BDI's May 7–13 research found no public refund-distribution disclosure from any of these four CBC recipients in press releases, investor communications, or news coverage.

The split is the data.

The Pattern

This is not a single-company corporate-governance story. It is a systemic test of how a $175 billion windfall reverses through the U.S. economy. The tariffs were paid at the import border by 330,000 companies. Those companies passed the costs forward in two directions: to small businesses they supply, and to consumers at the checkout counter. The refund process flows back only one direction: to the 330,000 entities that paid at the border.

That asymmetry is the structural problem the CBC is naming. Without an automatic pass-through mechanism, the refund money concentrates upstream while the cost it offsets was distributed downstream. The companies that pocket the refund don't have to lower prices, refund customers, or compensate suppliers. The decision is internal — disclose nothing, count it as profit, move on.

What's emerged in the two weeks since the CBC letter went out is more complicated than a binary refund-vs-pocket split. Four companies (UPS, FedEx, Costco, DHL) have publicly committed to return refund value to customers. Two (GM, Ford) have disclosed the refund as a corporate financial benefit, with no public pass-through commitment. Two more (Apple and Amazon) are reportedly forgoing refunds entirely to avoid political backlash from the Trump administration — a third path that neither helps consumers nor enriches the company beyond not making a target of itself. One (Walmart) is now in court over alleged double recovery. And four CBC recipients have not yet made any posture public.

Follow the Money — to Black Households

Tariffs on imported goods don't stay at the import desk. They get added to prices on the shelf. So if companies pass refund value back to customers — through lower prices, promotions, or markdowns — these are the categories where Black households should feel it most, because these are the categories where Black household spending runs higher than the national average (per the BLS 2024 Consumer Expenditure Survey):

• Footwear: 0.9% of Black household spending vs. 0.6% for non-Black households
• Women's and girls' apparel: 1.2% vs. 0.9%
• TVs, speakers, and electronics: 1.4% vs. 1.2%

These are the price tags Black shoppers should be watching as refunds clear — for markdowns, sale prices, store credit, or any sign the refund reached the checkout counter. If the prices don't move, the refund didn't reach the household that paid it.

Black households paid these tariffs in higher prices for more than a year. There is no individual-customer mechanism to reclaim that share. The only mechanism that currently exists is corporate disclosure — and most of the CBC's letter recipients have not yet provided one. With $35.5 billion already issued, the question has shifted from whether the refund process is operational to which companies are in the first wave and how they're booking the money.

The Apple and Amazon dynamic is its own complication. Both companies are reportedly forgoing their share of the refund pool — not to pass it to consumers, but to stay in the administration's good graces. On CNBC's Squawk Box, President Trump said he would "remember" the brands that don't ask for refunds. Forgoing is the favored posture. The result is that two of the largest U.S. importers may decline a portion of the $127 billion CBP refund pool entirely, leaving that money inside CBP. That outcome doesn't return to consumers either. It doesn't return at all.

The $175 billion refund is flowing now — $35.5 billion already cleared, the remainder following on a rolling basis through the CBP portal. If the bulk of it lands on corporate balance sheets, with a meaningful slice forgone to political pressure and only a fraction passed through to customer pricing, the result is direct: the tariff functioned as a regressive tax, was reversed by the Supreme Court, and the reversal benefits shareholders or no one. That outcome is not theoretical. It is what the May 12 filing made concrete — unless more companies make a different choice or Congress legislates one.

The Legislative Backstop

Reps. Steven Horsford and Janelle Bynum (OR-05) introduced the Restoring Economic Lifelines for Independent Enterprises and Family Businesses Act — the RELIEF Act — in February 2026, immediately following the Supreme Court ruling. The bill would require Customs and Border Protection to automatically refund all IEEPA tariff payments collected since January 1, 2025, within 90 days, with no application, no protest, and no lawyer required.

The structural premise of the RELIEF Act is that large corporations can afford to litigate refunds through years of CBP appeals and court process; small businesses cannot. The bill's automatic-refund mechanism levels the field — and, critically, creates the policy infrastructure for any future consumer-pass-through requirement to attach to.

The bill has not yet received a House vote. As long as it remains stalled, the refund process runs through the corporate-by-corporate path the CBC is now testing.

What's Missing

Five gaps shape what the data does not yet show.

BDI found no public refund posture from four CBC recipients. Home Depot, Lowe's, Target, and Best Buy — BDI's May 7–13 research returned no public commitment to refund customers and no stated plan to retain the refund as corporate revenue, in press releases, investor communications, or news coverage. The absence of disclosure is itself the data — it reveals the default posture of major consumer-facing retailers when asked how a multi-billion-dollar refund flows back through their books.

Apple's and Amazon's individual refund-share dollar amounts are unquantified. The reporting confirms both companies are forgoing refunds amid Trump-administration pressure, and confirms the total CBP refund pool is up to $127 billion. What it does not confirm is the specific dollar value of Apple's or Amazon's individual share. Without that figure, the political-pressure dynamic is documented but the financial scale to each company is not.

The pass-through mechanics for the four refunding companies are still abstract. UPS, FedEx, Costco, and DHL have committed to return refund value to customers — through refunds, lower prices, or facilitated filings. None have published the specific mechanism, timeline, or per-customer dollar amount. The execution will determine whether "vowed to refund" was a real commitment or a press posture.

The breakdown of who paid the tariffs at the household level is not yet quantified by income or race. The Tax Foundation modeled the household cost broadly, but a segmented analysis — what Black households paid versus the national average — has not been published. KFF, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, or the National Bureau of Economic Research are positioned to produce it.

The roughly 329,990 importers not on the CBC's list are operating without public accountability. The CBC letter targets 10 of the 330,000 entities that paid IEEPA tariffs. BDI has surfaced public refund postures for three more (Apple, GM, Ford). The remaining importer universe — including consumer-electronics brands, apparel companies, automakers, and appliance makers not yet named — is where the bulk of the $175 billion will flow, most without any public moment.

What to Watch

1. The next CBP court filing. The $35.5B confirmation came in a U.S. court filing on May 12. CBP has committed to file additional updates with the U.S. Court of International Trade as the refund process proceeds. Watch the next filing for the running total, the rate of refund issuance, and any breakdown of which industry sectors or company sizes are receiving the largest disbursements — the closest thing to public visibility on who's in line and who's getting paid first.
2. The four still-silent CBC recipients in Q2 earnings. Home Depot, Lowe's, Target, and Best Buy have not yet made a public refund posture in BDI's tracking. May and June quarterly earnings calls are the natural next moment. Watch whether each appears as profit-forecast boost (Ford/GM-style), customer-refund commitment (UPS/FedEx/Costco-style), Trump-pressure forgo (Apple/Amazon-style), or sued for double recovery (Walmart-style).
3. The Walmart class action. The $10.2B "double recovery" class action is the first legal challenge to test whether companies that passed tariff costs to consumers can also keep the refund. The outcome — settlement, dismissal, or trial — will define the legal floor for every retailer's refund decision and create the strongest legal mechanism BDI is tracking for consumer recovery.
4. RELIEF Act House vote. Track whether the Horsford-Bynum bill gets scheduled for a floor vote and which lawmakers — particularly those representing districts with high Black tariff-burden exposure — vote which way. The vote roll is the data.
5. Trump pressure on additional companies. The Apple/Amazon dynamic — companies forgoing refunds to avoid political backlash — could expand. Watch whether other major importers (electronics brands, apparel companies, automakers) publicly forgo their refund share, and whether that political dynamic spreads.
6. Black-household-specific tariff-cost segmentation. Watch whether KFF, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the Brookings Hamilton Project, or the Urban Institute publishes a segmented analysis of IEEPA tariff burden by income and race. That data will define whether the political case for consumer pass-through gets numerical specificity or stays generic.

Bottom Line

The Supreme Court ruled the tariffs illegal. As of May 12, the U.S. government has issued $35.5 billion of the projected $175 billion total — across 8 million import entries, through a new CBP online portal, with interest. The Congressional Black Caucus asked ten major companies how that money flows back to the consumers who paid it. The answers split five ways. UPS, FedEx, Costco, and DHL committed to return value to customers. GM and Ford booked the refund as corporate profit. Apple and Amazon are reportedly forgoing their share to avoid political backlash from the Trump administration. Walmart is being sued in a $10.2B class action over alleged double recovery. BDI's research found no public refund posture from Home Depot, Lowe's, Target, or Best Buy. Black households paid these tariffs in higher prices for more than a year. The dollars are no longer in the future tense — they're moving now. Whether any of it reaches the households that paid depends on which posture each company holds as the next $140 billion clears, and on whether Congress moves on the RELIEF Act before the money settles into corporate balance sheets where it's harder to dislodge.

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