US launches tariff refund system as thousands of importers line up

More than 330,000 importers paid up to $166bn in tariffs on 53 million shipments ​of imported goods.The refund system set up to allow companies to recover illegally collected tariffs from the United States government has gone live as thousands of companies rushed to file claims.“So far, so good” – though the system is a little glitchy, said Jay Foreman, CEO of toymaker Basic Fun, which had a team in its “war room” at its headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida, ready to start filing when the system went live at 8am US Eastern time (12:00 GMT) on Monday.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Kenyan women defy fishing taboos as climate change threatens Lake Victorialist 2 of 4Tougher testing for Indian athletes in ‘extremely high’ doping risk bracketlist 3 of 4‘Israel never talked me into the war with Iran,’ Trump sayslist 4 of 4Iran expands limited internet access but restrictions remain for mostend of listForeman said the system didn’t crash as some had feared it might under the onslaught of attempted submissions – but rather would sometimes not allow an upload and force them to retry. The company has over 500 files it needs to upload to the system, although the system permits these to be uploaded in batches.“However, if you load too many or the system is too busy, it will kick them back,” Foreman said in an email about how the process was working in the early moments. “We’ve got over 50 percent of our invoices loaded so far. We are hoping in the next few hours to have them all loaded. I’m very happy we got this process started early.”Companies contacted by the Reuters news agency in recent days expressed concerns about the durability of the new system, created by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in response to a court order that it prepare to return up to $166bn to importers.The US Supreme Court in February struck down the tariffs that President Donald Trump pursued under a law meant for use in national emergencies, handing the Republican president a stinging defeat.