FOX Business correspondent Lauren Simonetti breaks down a report revealing which US states bear the heaviest and lightest burden of tariffs on ‘Varney & Co.’ Costco said Thursday that it received $184 million in fee refunds in the company’s fourth quarter, most of which was reinvested into lower prices for members who shop at the retail giant’s warehouses. The large retailer said the lower tariff refund prices applied to a range of everyday items, including food and drink, as well as other product categories. Costco CEO Ron Vachris said on the company’s earnings call that the company “received some initial fee refunds in the fourth quarter, and we reinvested some of these dollars to return value to our members.” some non-food items like furniture and home hardware.” WALMART SAYS IT WILL USE BILLION IN FEE REFUNDS TO KEEP PRICES LOW Costco said it plans to reinvest most of its fee refunds into price improvements for members. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images) Costco CFO Gary Millerchip added that the company views price reinvestments as “very much a return of value to our members for the tariff refunds we received.” that we extend them as we could to items that would have the greatest impact for members… A good number of everyday items were affected. “We also invested some dollars in a number of non-food areas where tariffs would have had an impact on those items, particularly when the IEEPA tariffs were originally introduced,” he added. HOW SHOULD BUSINESSES ADDRESS TARIFFS REFUNDS? Bell/Getty Images) Millerchip said Costco received $184 million in fee refunds in the company’s fourth quarter, which consisted of $174 million in refunds and $10 million in interest. He added that amount represents a little more than a third of the total fee refunds Costco expects to receive, adding that the company had already received a similar amount of refunds in the first quarter. “We intend to continue to reinvest the majority of the dollars we receive into higher member values. As fee refunds and fee refund reinvestments are non-recurring items that will continue to impact our financial results in fiscal 2027, we plan to provide a similar level of net impact information on future quarterly earnings calls,” Millerchip said. 922.76 +26.29 +2.93% Vachris was asked about the impact of tariffs on Costco’s offerings last year, as the company had to recall a number of items from stores and replacing them with other SKUs. He said it “really had a bigger impact in the first and second quarters, it died down a little bit in the third quarter and we returned to a little more normality.”
