[marcosdumay]

> Companies that get 'refunds' will have an opportunity to use that money to rehire and repay workers.

Why on Earth do you expect a single-time payment with no strings attached to make companies think some market is profitable so they should invest in it?

[mgkimsal]

Unsure where you got that from? If a company that has had to lay off staff and reduce hours because of increase in expenses because of tariffs, then they get a chunk of money back, trying to 'get back' to where you were before - headcount, wages, etc - might be on your mind, and might be possible with a one-time refund of ideally a sizeable portion of your tax. However... we still have extremely high tariffs in place so the effects of higher input prices are still ongoing (and ramped up in some cases).

If our tariff structure went back to, say, October 2024, and companies who'd paid some inordinate tax - forcing layoffs and reductions - got a chunk of that back - and the taxes went back to what they were - there'd likely be some return to hiring and raises as before. But we can't get back to that any time soon with an administration hellbent on extracting as much from us via tariffs as possible.

[marcosdumay]

The reason companies invest is not because they have money.

And edit because I explained it badly:

That means that yes, getting the tariffs back can make them hire, because there may be more people wanting to buy things. Sending them the tariffs money will do absolutely nothing.

But even the first part isn't guaranteed, because you can't rollback the economy, things don't return to where they were, they go into some other place.