The U.S. Supreme Court's February ruling, which struck down President Donald Trump's indefinite tariffs imposed under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), has brought companies new clarity regarding the government's power to levy tariffs. However, Kristin Bohl, customs and international trade partner at PwC, said the ruling also raises new questions for CFOs about how companies can operate to recover the IEEPA tariff refunds they are owed, and what impact any windfall might have on their businesses.

Bohl noted that finance chiefs should keep two key points in mind regarding tariffs. First, although companies appear to have a legitimate right to refunds, the actual process of obtaining them is not straightforward. "A legal right does not equal operational readiness to receive a refund," Bohl said, adding that it is difficult to predict when refunds will begin to arrive. "I think CFOs need to think in terms of months or even years, not weeks."

To understand the potential timeline, Bohl said the best historical reference is to look at how Customs and Border Protection handled the port maintenance fee refunds that were struck down in the 1990s, which took years to complete. "Why did that process take years? First, Customs is not an agency set up for refunds; it is set up to collect money. As a revenue collection agency, its systems do not support reverse operations," Bohl said, noting that converting entry-by-entry processing into large-scale refunds is very difficult.

But that does not mean CFOs should sit back and wait. Instead, they should develop strategies considering how refunds will affect other cross-functional areas of the company, including tax and tax reporting, transfer pricing, financial accounting, and commercial and supplier relationships. "Obtaining the refund is really just the beginning," Bohl told CFO Dive. "CFOs need to have a broader perspective, considering tax, financial accounting, and commercial impacts that will hit the company."

To that end, finance chiefs should consider establishing cross-functional working groups to manage all downstream impacts. The group should include tax, supply chain representatives, as well as the controller or chief accounting officer, and procurement personnel responsible for supplier management. CFOs must have the foresight to bring together all the right people to ensure the company does not take a narrow view when examining the tariff refund process.

Another step CFOs should take is to review their data and documentation, letting "data lead the way," to determine the total amount of IEEPA refunds they believe they are owed. Bohl said that currently CFOs and their trade departments should gather documents, conduct reviews, and complete comprehensive post-entry audits of all company IEEPA entry records. They must ensure all data is in order so that when the time for refunds comes, there are no stumbling blocks. "Customs is unlikely to make the process easy," Bohl said. "If they find some deficiency in your entry records, they will use that as a reason to deny the refund."