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Over the past year, tariffs quietly reshaped margins, supply chains, and liquidity across the middle market.
Now they have created something far more unexpected: billions in potential refunds, wrapped in complexity, timing risk, and potential ownership disputes.
Most companies are still treating this as an accounting footnote. They shouldn’t.
A Once-in-a-Cycle Opportunity, With Clocks Already Running
The Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs on February 20, 2026, and refunds are likely owed.
The legal pathway to recovery exists, but it is not automatic. The government has until May 4 to appeal the key court order.
Normally, a payor has 180-day window from the date of a payment to make a claim. The Court of International Trade issued an amended order protecting any payments where the 180-day protest window has already closed. If the order stands, it could eliminate the need for individual protests. However, the order remains stayed pending CAPE development, and the government’s May 4 appeal deadline applies.
The CAPE refund platform inside CBP’s ACE system is still being built from scratch and any payment timelines are expected to stretch well into Q3 2026 and beyond.
Waiting for perfect clarity is a strategy. Just not a good one.
Most Companies Are Asking the Wrong Question
The instinctive question is “How much did we pay in tariffs?”
The right question is: “Are we the Importer of Record – and do we have free and clear access to any refund?”
From what we’re seeing in live deals right now:
Many who think they have a claim don’t. If the IOR was your freight forwarder or a third-party logistics provider, you have no direct claim against CBP. Any recovery would need to run through your supplier or forwarder relationship, not through the government.
Others hold the claim, but lender agreements restrict monetization.Some already passed costs to customers, creating offsetting obligations and potential litigation risk.
It is also important to confirm that duties were assessed under IEEPA authority. Tariffs imposed under Section 301 or Section 232 were not invalidated by the Supreme Court ruling and are therefore not currently eligible for refund.
The complexity often does not end there. Former owners, companies in receivership, parties bound by restrictive covenants, and businesses that absorbed higher prices from suppliers may all have a stake in these claims, each with different rights and different constraints on recovery.
If you have recently completed a transaction, gone through a refinancing, or are planning either, the implications are broader than most stakeholders realize.
This is not just an accounting exercise. It is a decision that touches capital structure, deal timing, and stakeholder rights.
An Overlooked Value Driver
For a company with $20M in imports during the IEEPA window (April 2025–February 2026) at a blended ~12% rate, the gross refund is approximately $2.4M.
At a conservative 6x EBITDA multiple, that translates to $11M–$14M of enterprise-value impact-after advisory and legal costs.
Yet in transaction after transaction, this asset is rarely modeled, negotiated, and is often not even surfaced before signing.
The Strategic Choice to Prepare For
Once the claim is validated, owners, sponsors, and lenders face the same three paths:
Hold → Pursue full recovery through CBP (and potentially the CIT). Maximum dollars. Longest timeline. Highest execution risk.
Monetize → Sell to a financial buyer today at 50–60 cents on the dollar. Cash in 30–60 days. Timing and legal risk transferred.
Hybrid → Sell a tranche for immediate liquidity and retain the balance for full upside.
There is no universal “right” answer. The correct one depends on the claim holder’s liquidity position, lender consent requirements, and risk tolerance.
Where This Is Already Creating Friction
We are seeing tariff refund claims surface-and complicate real situations every week:
Transactions, Buyers and sellers fighting post-close over who owns the refund because it was never addressed in the purchase agreement.
Credit agreements: Unrecognized contingent assets distorting borrowing bases, covenants, and leverage ratios.
PE portfolios, Refunds quietly shifting EBITDA and exit valuations—sometimes favorably, sometimes not.
Distressed and Chapter 11 situations: A rare monetizable asset that must be scheduled, valued, and explicitly addressed – or it will disappear.
What Smart Operators Are Doing Right Now
Leading owners, sponsors, and lenders aren’t waiting for the portal to be perfect. They are:
- Confirming IOR status this week (Block 10 on every CF-7501).
- Aggregating ACE entry data across every broker and flagging 9903-series HTS codes.
- Mapping ownership, lender restrictions, and any customer pass-throughs.
- Enrolling in ACH and preparing CAPE declarations so they can file on day one.
- Addressing the claim explicitly in every sale, refinance, or restructuring document.
The Real Risk Isn’t Missing the Refund, It’s Mismanaging It.
It’s not simply about filing the paperwork. It is about understanding your full situation, past, present, and future. The specific language in your contracts, loan agreements, and purchase documents will determine how a claim can be pursued, who is entitled to the proceeds, and what approvals are required.
Negotiation with lenders, clarifying how a claim can be received, and reviewing restrictive covenants are all necessary parts of the equation.
Leave the claim unaddressed and you risk:
- Walking away from material value in a sale
- Triggering a covenant default
- Creating post-close disputes
- Losing control of the claim entirely in a restructuring
This is a one-time opportunityand the consequences are permanent.
A Simple Question
If your company-or any company you own, lent to, or advise-imported goods between April 2025 and February 2026, do you know exactly what the claim is worth, who legally owns it, and the optimal path forward?
If the answer is anything less than certain, there is work to do, and the window is narrowing.
At Harney Partners, we are actively advising owners, sponsors, lenders, and operators on claim validation, monetization strategy, credit agreement navigation, and transaction structuring.
If you are in the middle of a sale, refinance, restructuring, or simply want clarity before the next covenant test, reach out.
The right answer depends on your specific situation. We can help.
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