I’m a small-business owner who paid thousands in tariff fees. I’ve given up on the idea of refunds.

I'm a small-business owner who paid thousands in tariff fees. I've given up on the idea of getting any of it refunded. By ...

July 13, 2026

I'm a small-business owner who paid thousands in tariff fees. I've given up on the idea of getting any of it refunded.

By

Kelsey Vlamis

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This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Marc Bowker, owner of Alter Ego Comics, a comic book shop in Lima, Ohio, and an accompanying e-commerce business. After the Supreme Court struck down some of President Donald Trump's tariffs in February, refunds are being issued to some importers. This story has been edited for length and clarity.

I keep a spreadsheet of what we've paid in tariff fees, and it's around $16,000 since April 2025. I was just on a two-week vacation and a thought ran through my head: "Why am I doing this? We're never going to get this back."

The tariff refunds are going to the companies that actually paid the import duties directly to the government, or the Importers of Record, so those will be your large manufacturers or importers. Many retailers like myself are ordering from third-party distributors. Because we are not directly importing the products, we can't directly apply for a refund.

I have not gotten answers about whether our suppliers will pass along refunds. Even if they do, it becomes very complicated because we've passed on a percentage of the tariff fees to our customers. So if I do ask for reimbursement, do I then turn around and reimburse them?

I think, unfortunately, everybody's out of luck unless you're one of the biggest companies in the world and have an entire legal force, HR, and finance teams that can do all of this. For the American small business, I really don't see anyone getting reimbursed, let alone passing that on to their customers.

A 'never-ending whack-a-mole of tariffs'

After the Supreme Court decision in February, I was hoping things would go back to the way they were before. Then Trump announced another 10% global tariff fee. The never-ending whack-a-mole of tariffs just seems like death by a thousand paper cuts.

We are still being charged a tariff fee from our primary supplier on every shipment. Our products affected by tariffs include collectible action figures, our largest revenue driver, which we also sell online. Sales of those products are down 50% from their pre-tariff levels.

I think our customers are either buying from companies that can absorb the tariff costs or holding off on purchasing because they don't want to pay the extra fee. It could also be that because the price of other goods has gone up, they are cutting their luxury spending. Buying a $300 action figure is not as important as filling up your gas tank or buying food when prices are up.

Fortunately, I have multiple revenue streams. I still have our brick-and-mortar operation, where people spend between $25 and $50 on comics and other products that are not subject to tariffs. I have started thinking, do I need to pull the plug on products impacted by tariffs because it's creating more headaches than it's worth?

There's also a lot of rumbling from fellow retailers that these tariffs could be a Pandora's box for manufacturers and that once they see that they can pass these fees on and raise the prices of their products, they may not go back to the way things were before, even if the tariffs go away.

Small businesses need help

I have been wondering whether trade associations like the National Federation of Independent Business and chambers of commerce — local, state, or national — will work to secure reimbursements for their members. Is anybody fighting for small businesses in America about these tariffs?

In many cases, small businesses are run by solopreneurs or have fewer than 5 or 10 staff members. For our own sanity, we have to focus on what we can control — the four walls of our business — rather than trying to institute change from the outside, which takes time, money, and energy we may not have.

Instead of all of us having to pay attention to the changes in the tariff and refund situation on our own, the organizations that represent small businesses in America should be fighting for us.

Ultimately, it's going to fall to individual small businesses to push back, make those phone calls, and ask questions to figure out what's going on, but I don't expect to get any refunds.

At this point, if things could go back to the way they were pre-April 2025, that would be a win in my book.

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Kelsey Vlamis

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Kelsey is a senior reporter for Business Insider, where she covers business and tech news as well as stories about travel, luxury, and consulting.Her feature story "Disaster at 18,200 feet" received awards from the New York Press Club and the North American Travel Journalists Association, as well as honorable mention from the Society of American Travel Writers. It was also included on Longreads' and Pocket's best of 2022 lists. She has also received an American Journalism Online Award for her coverage on missing and murdered Indigenous people in Wyoming.She's appeared on CBS, NPR, NBC, and other outlets to discuss her work. She previously worked on the world news desk at the BBC in London and received a master's in journalism from Northwestern University.She can be reached by email at [email protected] or via the encrypted-messaging app Signal @kelseyv.21.Popular storiesDisaster on Denali: Inside a 1,000-foot fall on America's highest peakThrifting is more popular than ever. It's also never been worse.Rolex wouldn't service the vintage watch my mom inherited. Watchmakers say it happens all the time.A tiny, invasive bug and the climate crisis are changing how guitars are made, and shifting the course of music historyThe tourism free-for-all is overGovernment-run boarding schools were founded to 'civilize' Native Americans. Hundreds of dead children remain buried in the schoolyard graves.Meet the Texas minister who helps fly dozens of women to New Mexico every month to get abortionsPeople are flocking to Colorado for the great outdoors, but the air pollution is so bad, it's forcing many to stay insideInside Kabul: An aid worker reveals the devastating chaos that erupted during the US exit from Afghanistan

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