Brattle Consultants Examine the Economics of Tariff Refunds in Tax Notes Article
Published in Tax Notes
In November 2025, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in two consolidated cases – Learning Resources v. Trump and V.O.S. Selections v. United States – that could affect roughly $195 billion in recently imposed trade tariffs. If the Court invalidates the tariffs, a complex and potentially messy reimbursement process is likely to follow.
Principals Jan Jindra and Andrew O’Brien-Penney examine the tariff refund process in a recent Tax Notes article, including the risks that the process poses to parties responsible for distributing tax refunds. They argue that robust economic analysis will be necessary to establish the degree of disparity between remitted tariff payments and the actual economic burden borne by each market participant in order to justify fair refunds.
The full article, “The Economics of Tariff Refunds,” is available below.
