The people who paid the government are the importers (or companies hire on behalf of importers).
I didn't pay the government a tariff on anything. I purchased goods. Those goods likely included at least a portion of the tariffs the importing company paid - but many companies absorbed part or all of the tariffs because they knew they would lose the market for their products if they passed all of it on. How much they passed on varies from company to company/product to product. It likely depended in part on whether there were non-imported competing products - or competing products from countries with lower tariffs.
I'm not suggesting prices were not higher because of tariffs - just that the ruling was the tariffs were unconstitutional means those who paid the tariffs **to the government** are entitled to a refund from the government. There was never any basis for a legal ruling that the end consumers, who did not pay the tariffs to the government, would be entitled to a tariff refund. Anything that was passed on to the consumer is between the consumer and the business (just like when there is an increase in the cost of anything else that goes into a product for any other reason - like, for example, the significantly increased costs now because anything made from oil is more expensive). The business determines how much it is willing to cut its profits (temporarily or permanently) and how much it believes the market will bear.
That's one of the reasons, in my opinion, that an injunction should have been granted - the damage done to the American public cannot be easily calculated or undone if the tariffs were ultimately found unconstitutional. Even the average cost per household - assuming it is accurate and doesn't include inflation unrelated to tariffs - assumes that each family was equally hurt. They weren't. Larger families likely paid - on average - more tariffs. Families who have easier choices as to where to buy goods were likely able to avoid more tariff-increased prices than those forced to shop at the corner store. I didn't personally pay a lot more due to tariffs. I have more resources than most (both access to money and stuff). I put off purchases, I bought things already in the US (used car, rather than new, for example), I ate things out of my freezer and pantry, I cooked more meals at home than I might otherwise have - avoiding tariff-hiked restaurant food. People living paycheck to paycheck didn't necessarily have those options. All of those were readily predictable consequences of tariffs, which the court could not solve by throwing money at the problem after the fact because even refunding money to those who paid the tariffs can't undo the incalculable (or at least very hard to calculate) harm that would inherently be done to others. (One of the rough factors for deciding if an injunction is warranted is that if you can (legally) throw money at the problem after the fact and make the injured party whole again, you aren't entitled to an injunction becasue there is no irreparable harm.)
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