Summary
IEEPA tariff refunds are now legally available and the filing system is live. In this episode of the Ecommerce Finance Podcast, Stephen Brown, COO at LedgerGurus and co-owner of Sole Toscana, walks through the complete IEEPA tariff refund process from start to finish alongside Stacy Walker, Director of Growth at LedgerGurus.
The Supreme Court ruled IEEPA tariffs unconstitutional. The Court of International Trade followed up and ordered Customs and Border Patrol to issue refunds. CBP has since built a new system called CAPE, the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries, inside the ACE portal to process IEEPA tariff refunds electronically. Phase one went live on April 20, 2026.
Takeaways
- IEEPA Tariffs Were Ruled Unconstitutional and Refunds Are Now Legally Available
- The CAPE System Went Live April 20, 2026 and the Refund Process Has Officially Started
- Only the Importer of Record Qualifies, If Your Manufacturer Filed, the Refund Goes to Them
- Refunds Are Electronic and Take 60 to 90 Days Once Your Application Is Submitted
- Your First Move Is Getting Set Up in the ACE Portal at ace.cbp.gov
- This Is Not Automatic, You Have to Initiate the Process Yourself
- Do Not Count on This Money Until It Actually Hits Your Account
- Expect the Refund to Be Taxable Income and Plan Ahead Now
- Your Broker Probably Will Not Come to You, You Have to Go to Them
- Avoid Pop-Up Services With No Track Record and Work With People You Already Trust
What We Cover:
- 00:00 Are IEEPA Tariff Refunds Real and Can Brands Actually Count on the Money?
- 00:27 What Is Being Refunded and Why the Supreme Court Ruling Changed Everything
- 02:00 What Is the CAPE System and Why Does It Matter for Ecommerce Sellers?
- 02:40 Who Qualifies and Who Gets Left Out?
- 04:52 How Long Will It Take to Actually Get Your Money Back?
- 06:46 Where Do You File and How Do You Track the Progress?
- 09:08 How Much Money Are We Talking and Is It Worth the Effort?
- 09:57 The Step-by-Step Process for Filing Your IEEPA Tariff Refund
- 13:25 Where Does the Refund Go in Your Books and What Are the Tax Implications?
- 15:35 Three Things Every Operator Should Do Right Now
- 22:15 How to Avoid Surprises and Stay Ahead as the CAPE System Evolves
Guest Information
Stacy Walker is the Director of Growth at LedgerGurus, where she leads the sales and growth strategy for one of the ecommerce industry’s most specialized accounting firms. With a background that spans business development, sales, and marketing, Stacy brings a front-line perspective on what ecommerce brands are actually dealing with, having spent years talking directly with seven and eight-figure sellers navigating everything from scaling challenges to profitability gaps.
Work with LedgerGurus
If your ecommerce business paid IEEPA tariffs in 2025 and you need help navigating the refund process or getting your books in order, reach out to LedgerGurus.
Transcript
Stacy Walker (00:00)
Are tariff refunds real and can brands actually count on the money?
Stephen Brown (00:04)
tariff refunds are real and they are now available, but it’s a process that e-commerce businesses need to start working on now. to the e-commerce finance podcast. I’m Stephen Brown with LedgerGurus and with me today, I have Stacy Walker, our director of growth, and we are going to talk about IEEPA tariff refunds. Stacy, welcome back to the podcast.
Stacy Walker (00:25)
Thanks for having me, Stephen.
Stephen Brown (00:27)
Let’s just dive in and get to the information because there is money out there for people that have been impacted by tariffs, which most e-commerce brands were.
Stacy Walker (00:37)
Yeah, for sure. Well, let’s start at the beginning then, Stephen, tell me what’s being refunded.
Stephen Brown (00:41)
So last year you had the Liberation Day and the legal authority that was used was the IEEPA or International Emergency Economic Powers Act. This was used to enforce a bunch of tariffs. It was a law that gave the president some emergency powers and this went to the court. And in February the Supreme Court ruled that the IEEPA, I’m gonna use that.
because the full name is hard to say, not that IEEPA is not. The IEEPA tariffs, the authority was unconstitutional. And so those were ruled unconstitutional and duties tariffs imposed by IEEPA are.
Eligible for a refund the court of international trade which was the last court before the Supreme Court Followed up they got in the face of Customs and Border Patrol and said need to refund it because they didn’t want to deal with a bunch of lawsuits the lawsuits were already starting to pile up Customs and Border Patrol said ⁓ this is gonna be too hard and they said You guys have computers use them and so they did so for the last couple of weeks. They built a system. It’s called cape
and that’s what they’re using to do refunds.
Stacy Walker (02:00)
Wow, that’s so interesting. Tell me what is CAPE and why does it even matter?
Stephen Brown (02:07)
So CAPE stands for the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries. You gotta love these acronyms, they’re wild. So this is a subsystem they’ve built into one of their main systems called ACE. It’s the Automated Commercial Environment System. It’s a subsystem that you can go in to use and do the tariff refunds. And they spent a couple weeks working on it, and it went live.
Stacy Walker (02:13)
I never really.
Stephen Brown (02:37)
so people can now start getting refunds.
Stacy Walker (02:40)
Interesting. So who actually even can get a refund to who qualifies?
Stephen Brown (02:46)
So this is a really important thing that people need to know. Are they the importer of record? And I think smaller sellers might not even know. There are two ways to import products. There is, well there’s actually multiple ways, but the importer of record, sometimes that’s the manufacturer. So there was some things talking about DDR, and I can’t remember what DDR means, but you could have your manufacturer be the importer of record, and they would be responsible for all the duties and tariffs and all that.
And that was one thing that was being pushed during this tariff regime. Most people are probably the importer of record, even if they’re using a custom broker or like the business they have corner ship in Sole Toscana. We use an importer and they gathered our stuff, but we were the importer of record. You are the one who’s the importer of record is going to be eligible for the refund and they’re going to have to get that through this Cape system, which is a subset of the
Stacy Walker (03:15)
Okay.
Stephen Brown (03:43)
ACE Portal or Automated Commercial Environment System. that is how you’re the so the Imported Record will get the the refunds electronically electronically.
Stacy Walker (03:57)
Okay, perfect. So then who inside the company needs to be involved?
Stephen Brown (04:03)
It could be a few people, I would say the most important people inside the company who has been responsible for the import part of the supply chain. The person who’s been working with either the customs broker or the importer ⁓ to get that done. And like in the case of our business, we sent our importer a bunch of information. They took care of the rest, even though we were the importer of record. But
My partner is the one who did that. In every company there’s probably somebody who’s done that. They should be involved. You may need to get your finance team involved. You need to chase down those duty reports. Make sure you know what is eligible for being refunded. those are the key players I would say that should be involved.
Stacy Walker (04:52)
Okay, okay. So when does all of this happen or start and how long are they saying it will be until people get their money back?
Stephen Brown (05:03)
So CAPE, that subsystem, again, let see if I can find the acronym here. CAPE, the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries system, phase one launched on April 20th, 2026. So it’s live now. Now, phase one only covers ⁓ entries within 80 days of liquidation and unliquidated entries.
Stacy Walker (05:20)
It’s live now, okay.
Stephen Brown (05:31)
which is a funny term. We’ll talk about that. There’s some other qualifications that they’re gonna do, but those are the principal ones. And what I reading is it’s gonna take 60 to 90 days once your application has been submitted to get the money back.
Stacy Walker (05:54)
Okay.
Okay. So then take a minute and tell the tell sellers like what does liquidation mean in plain English in this situation.
Stephen Brown (06:04)
liquidation is basically where customs and border patrol finalizes that import entry and phase one is focusing on a subset of recently recently liquidated entries and on liquidated entries. ⁓ Again, there’s a lot of confusion here. My guess is there’s going to be some things you’ll be able to get moving right away and some things that are going to take a little bit longer.
Stacy Walker (06:33)
Yeah, yeah, I think anything with the government tends to be that way. ⁓ So if I was a business owner and I wanted to file, where would I go to file and how would I track the progress of it?
Stephen Brown (06:46)
So the ACE Portal, if you do a search for CBP ACE, you can usually find it. ⁓ That is where you’re gonna get to the CAPE system. So let me just do it real quick. CBP ACE. I’ll get you the exact, it is ACE.CBP.gov. So CAPE actually lives inside of that ACE Portal.
And so then one of the first things you got to do is you got to get your ACE account set up if you haven’t. And what I’m finding is like, we didn’t have one and it’s a little bit tricky because you might’ve had an importer helped you get things set up. So you got to go in and be like, Hey, what did they, what information did I get them? How do I get in the system? What I’m hearing from some customers is this system’s going really slow. Surprise, surprise. It’s getting a lot of, of traffic. And so you’ve got to go through getting set up with.
the same, I’m told the same email that you use to, to file, um, all the import records. And so like in our case and some other customers I worked with, they’ve never set up an ACE account, but somebody submitted that information to Customs and Border Patrol. So that’s the first thing that people should start working on right away with either their customs broker or importer or whoever it was. If you are the importer of record, that’s important. If you’re not the importer of record,
It’s not going to matter. You’re not going to get the refund. Like if you’ve been letting your manufacturers be the importer of record, then they’re the ones who get a benefit from that. But if you have been the one paying the duties and you’ll know, then you are the importer of record and you’ll, you will want to get set up in the ACE portal.
Stacy Walker (08:30)
So Stephen, where are the refunds being deposited for the business owners?
Stephen Brown (08:35)
So right now, Customs and Border Patrol is saying they’re only gonna do electronic refunds, which is great, because you’re not gonna have to look for some random check out there. So when you get in there, you’re gonna have to set up your bank information for refunds, whatever bank account you set up is where the refunds will get. And again, what they’re saying is it’s gonna take like 60 to 90 days. So on one hand, this is money that you weren’t planning on.
which is gonna be awesome, but it’s gonna take some time to get to it.
Stacy Walker (09:08)
Yeah. Yeah. So if I was an operator besides just the free money idea, why, why do I care about chasing this down? It sounds like it’s going to be a bit of a hassle.
Stephen Brown (09:21)
These tariffs, depending on the size of your business, could be, I’d say even small sellers, it’s thousands to tens of thousands. For larger sellers, it’s tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. And for much larger sellers, it could be millions of dollars that you’ve already paid that you’re gonna get back. So it’s worth the time to go out and chase for this money. I would say everybody should be working on this.
keeping it on their radar because it’s money that is yours to get back, but it’s not automatic. You’re going to have to put the work in to do it.
Stacy Walker (09:57)
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we’ve talked about kind of how, how you can get it and what you have to do for it, but let’s go, let’s do like a bulleted step one, step two. How do they, how does an importer actually do this?
Stephen Brown (10:11)
I haven’t gone through this process beginning to end, but I wanted to do this episode anyways because there’s enough information that’s getting out there that I think it’s authoritative. So one, you got to get set up in the ACE portal. You got to set up your ACE account. You got to get your bank information set up so you can get the refunds. You’re going have to gather all the eligible entry numbers and information. And it sounds like you’re going to have to create a CSV.
which is a very crude spreadsheet that has following Custom on Border Patrol’s CAPE template rules. So there’s gonna be a process there. Then you’re gonna upload ⁓ a CAPE declaration and monitor that it gets accepted. And then once it gets accepted, you just track payment and make sure that the payment gets received. So it’s a little bit harrowing for…
Somebody who’s used to doing this kind of import stuff, my guess is it’s not too much different. But if you’ve been hands-off allowing your importer, your customs broker, do all the things, and now you’ve got to get in and get dirty, this might be a little bit much.
Stacy Walker (11:27)
Yeah, yeah, I can see how it would feel overwhelming for sure. ⁓ So I know you haven’t finished the process for Sole Toscana, but I know you’ve been heavily involved in it. So tell me what are some of the top issues that you’re hearing about right now?
Stephen Brown (11:41)
The issue we’re running into and I’m hearing is getting that ASIC account set up is a little bit of a pain because you’re like, I don’t remember what I sent my importer. Um, I have another customer who’s having issues with like a email verification. think that system’s just getting hammered. And so just getting set up is a little bit of a slog. Um, I have been reading and hearing that people that are set up in there,
They’re seeing a lot of like timeout errors. So I think the system just getting hammered and that’s probably going to work its way through over the next few weeks. ⁓
I’m sure there’s going to be some errors in the way that you upload that that CAPE declaration.
Stacy Walker (12:22)
Yeah, I’m sure.
Stephen Brown (12:24)
And so there’s a part of me that’s like, I doubt that most people were planning on this money and now it’s real. So I’m of the position of, unless you’re absolutely desperate to get that money, maybe wait a little bit. There’s probably going to be more information that’s going to come out, more documentation, plus the system will get solidified, but then jump on it and start working your way through the system.
Stacy Walker (12:40)
Yeah.
Yeah, that’s great. ⁓ So if I’m an owner, how am I going to handle forecasting knowing this is coming?
Stephen Brown (12:57)
I would not plan to me, this is, this is free money that you weren’t planning on. So I wouldn’t count on it until you actually get it. But like, to me, the way we’re thinking about it is like, cool. Here’s some working capital that we could really use, but I wouldn’t earmark it for anything today because it’s a little bit unpredictable how quickly you’re going to get it.
Stacy Walker (13:25)
Okay. Tell me from an accounting perspective, where is the money going to be accounted for in the books?
Stephen Brown (13:35)
That’s a good question. So from a tax perspective, right? Technically it would be a refund of duties, which usually, if you look at the accounting, if the accounting is done right, that hits your landed product costs and comes onto your profit and loss when you sell product. The challenge is some of these tariffs were in 2025. In fact, big chunk of them. And if you’ve
Stacy Walker (13:56)
Right.
Yep.
Stephen Brown (14:04)
filed your taxes already that your books are closed. You can’t go apply that to last year. You technically could apply some of that money if you wanted to do the accounting work, but it’s tricky because landed product costs. We’ve talked about that. There’s a lot that goes into it. It’s, and so you’re probably going to apply it as a refund and most likely depending on how much effort you or your accountant wants to go,
through, may just be other income. Or if you have the ability and care to go into it, you may apply it as like a reduction in cost of goods sold because technically that’s what it is. But because we’re talking about money from a previous period, which may have already filed taxes, you’re just going to recognize it in this year and probably do it as other income. Or you could recognize it as a refund to cost of goods sold, but it’s a little bit misleading because it’s covering
Stacy Walker (14:35)
Yeah.
Stephen Brown (15:03)
You know, it’s a one-time refund for multiple periods of cost of goods sold. Because of that, income’s gonna go up. There will be potential taxability on this income because you’re gonna have this lump sum of income. You may be able to do some fancy accounting to reduce your tax exposure, but it’s not gonna be easy accounting. So if you expect your accountant just to wave a magic wand and make this not taxable,
Stacy Walker (15:08)
Yeah, yeah.
Stephen Brown (15:32)
It’s not quite that simple.
Stacy Walker (15:35)
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So assume I’m an operator that’s listening to this and is feeling a little overwhelmed from all of the things. What would you say are say three things that I could do right now to start moving forward with it?
Stephen Brown (15:37)
but it’s technically doable.
Number one is you got to get access to the ACE portal. And I hope this doesn’t shut people down because it’s hard, but I’m like, you’re selling, doing complex things. Just lean into one more thing. It’ll be worth your time. There, there’s going to be a lot. So you got to get your ACE portal. You got to get your bank information set up and then you got to go through that Cape declaration, which I do think could be a little bit harrowing.
I’m not seeing like, I don’t know, maybe your importer will help you with that. Maybe your customs broker will help you with that. ⁓ I’m sure there’ll be people out there that will be helpful. We’re going to try to be helpful, but I’m trying to decide as we’re going through this process ourselves with Sole Toscana, I’m trying to see how helpful we can be, you know, coming from a finance background in this process.
Stacy Walker (16:48)
Yeah, yeah, that was going to be my next question. Will LedgerGurus be helping our clients and others with it? And it sounds like we will to an extent depending on how, how complex, how complicated it gets.
Stephen Brown (17:01)
To the extent that we are able, I think a customs broker and importer are gonna be key resources. I don’t know how well they’re knowledgeable, gonna be knowledgeable around this process, but they are probably the most likely expert. We’re gonna try, you know, there’s a piece of this equation that we can help and we’re good with dealing with lame government portals. So if I feel like we can do the whole thing,
But we’re going to need the support of the customer and or the importer because there’s a lot of information that we, that doesn’t make it to like your finance team. think the best combo is like the finance team and the, ⁓ supply chain operations team, but you’re probably still going to need to lean on that customs or broker or importer who aren’t in the company. That combination is probably the best ones to navigate through this because of the obtuse nature of.
Stacy Walker (17:39)
Yeah.
Stephen Brown (17:58)
these kind of systems.
Stacy Walker (18:00)
Okay. So if I’m somebody who usually has my broker handle everything, do I still need to care about this? Or can I just, you know, wash my hands of it and assume it’s being taken care of by them.
Stephen Brown (18:11)
I think you’re going to be the one who’s going to have to care. What we’re seeing with our importers, they’re not coming to us. We’re going to them. So I don’t know if there’s an economic incentive for them to help you. So you’re going to probably have to hit them up and say, Hey, I need this. Can you help me there? The smart ones I would hope would be going out to help people get refunds. The thing I’m worried about. I’ll tell you what I’m worried about the most. What we saw during COVID with the paycheck protection loans.
Stacy Walker (18:36)
Yeah, tell me.
Stephen Brown (18:41)
and the EIDL loans and some other things is there were these, ⁓ we call them PPP trolls. There’s people that were just setting up businesses and they would take like 30 % of the loan or like EIDL ⁓ tax, it was basically a tax credit of sorts. They were taking a big portion of that for stuff that really did not merit that.
Stacy Walker (18:49)
⁓ yeah.
Stephen Brown (19:10)
level of cost. And then the other thing we saw is some of those people, got the money and they disappeared. Sometimes they filed ⁓ requests on very shaky grounds and then they’re off in the Bahamas or wherever just living it up. I imagine you’re going to start seeing those types pop up and I would say don’t work with those people unless it’s like the
Stacy Walker (19:13)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Stephen Brown (19:38)
only way you feel like you can get through this. I have a feeling there’s going to be more reputable customs brokers, potentially accountants. Again, it’s kind of this gray area that nobody really owns. You know, it’s kind of customs, but I’m not sure if they really do this. Importers probably are like, this isn’t my thing. But people that are familiar with the ACE portal are the good candidates, but there’s going to be people that are going to figure out how to do this. And I’m going to try and charge an arm and a leg and you’ll be like, well, I wasn’t
Stacy Walker (19:51)
Yeah.
Right, right.
Yeah.
Stephen Brown (20:06)
planning on getting that money anyways and you’ll be tempted to go with them because they may be very good. The problem I have with those type of businesses is they probably will get the refund. I don’t expect too much fraud, but you’ll see them and they have no reputation. They’ll pop out and up out of nowhere and they’ll disappear in a year. So let’s say there’s any issues with your refund. Are they going to be around?
It just seems like every time there’s one of these programs, there’s this sub-industry that pops up and then disappears, and they charge an arm and a leg, and they put your business at risk. So I would generally avoid those types if possible, and work with people where you’re have an ongoing relationship. Those people may be faster than the rest of us, but they’re not gonna be here in a year or two.
Stacy Walker (20:32)
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree. ⁓ So this isn’t automatic, right? People have to initiate the process and get started.
Stephen Brown (21:05)
No, it is, even though the government has all the information, what they don’t have probably is the bank account. And sounds like even if they did have the bank account, there are refunds, ⁓ those exist. A lot of people, unless you’re really big, don’t fight Customs and Border Patrol, but I’m sure really big businesses, they probably have teams of people that know this stuff. They’re probably the ones that are already pounding the portal.
For those of us who are the smaller sellers or supporting smaller sellers, you know, we’re not dealing with this every minute of every day. This is just one of many things we’re doing. And so there is a process and therefore it’s not automatic. Even if, like I said, if had all the information, it’s not automatic. It’s kind of like income taxes. You can get a refund, but you got to do the process.
Stacy Walker (22:03)
All right, that makes sense. Okay, one last question. How do I avoid surprises? Anything that you, any advice you can give that would make it so that there’s maybe fewer hiccups along the way.
Stephen Brown (22:15)
I’m seeing increasingly great information out there. Flexport has like a living blog on this. If you just like search for IEEPA tariff refunds, there’s a lot of information. We are putting information in our email newsletter every week. And as I see like what I feel like is well vetted, authoritative information on this and putting it out there. And so I feel like the information is going to build up hopefully like AI.
holds it together and makes it even easier to consume. But I’m seeing some authoritative sources out there that are creating the information. I’m sure there’s gonna be some hiccups. I’m sure there’s gonna be some challenges. That’s why I’m not rushing into it right now. But I’m hoping within the next few weeks that we can get on the other end of the application so we can get our refund. For us, a small seller, it’s gonna be, you know, tens of thousands.
which we will very much be happy to put back into our bank account because we need it. ⁓ And I want this for all sellers who had to pay those tariffs because they were painful and they probably really put people on the edge. And I think people may be exhausted from last year and tariffs this year and all the chaos that’s going on, but I’m like, go get it. Please go get it. You need it. It’ll help you. And we are going to do our best to try and communicate and support people.
Stacy Walker (23:15)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, hang on a little longer.
Stephen Brown (23:42)
where we can to help them get their refunds.
Stacy Walker (23:44)
Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. I love that. is there, if people have questions, where’s the best place for them to get in contact with you?
Stephen Brown (23:53)
You can reach us through our website, ledgergurus.com. ⁓ You could find me on LinkedIn as well, but I think ledgergurus.com. There’s a contact us form. That’s probably the best place. And again, as I was hesitant to do this episode, but I just want to get the information out there so people can start lining things up, getting, figuring out where their custom entries are. You probably got an email or you filed away somewhere, start working on the ACE portal.
and we’re gonna be working on getting things going, but I want people to be aware, start working on this, and as we have more definitive information, we’ll communicate it out via the various channels that we use, whether that’s our email newsletter, our YouTube channel,
Stacy Walker (24:39)
Awesome. Thanks, Stephen.
Stephen Brown (24:40)
Okay, so go get your refunds until the next episode.