Good morning!
Here are today’s highlights:
A company called Artisan is encouraging businesses to fire their humans.
More employees of small businesses are looking to unionize.
What’s a reasonable retainer for a local business to pay an SEO agency?
President Trump’s trade rep is doing his best to make sure the tariffs never go away.
THE TARIFFS
Gene Marks says you’ll probably have to pay taxes on your tariff refund: “When the Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump’s tariffs, many small importers assumed any refunds would be tied up in bureaucracy for years. Surprisingly, that’s not what’s happening. It’s estimated that roughly 330,000 importers paid more than $166 billion in tariff fees imposed by Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. If your business was affected, here’s good news: you can get your tariffs refunded. You just need to be a little patient.”
“That’s the advice from Melissa Alvarado Quisenberry, a vice-president at Michigan-based Supply Chain Solutions. Her company helps businesses manage freight forwarding, transportation, customs brokerage, warehousing, inventory, and shipping operations. And over the past few weeks — ever since the federal government announced that, yes, despite the president’s grumblings, there would be a tariff refund after all — Quisenberry’s company has been busy filing refund claims for many of her clients seeking to claw their money back.”
“To get your money, you need to work with the import firm that originally handled the paperwork and collected the fees. The government is requiring that your original customs broker — the ‘importer of record’ — must be the one to apply for the refund. It can’t just be any broker or consultant or fly-by-night firm that provides these services, and I’m betting that’s because the government learned its lesson from the pandemic-era Employee Retention Tax Credit debacle.”
“Quisenberry acknowledged that being forced to use your original customs broker can create problems if your business is unhappy with that firm — for example, if the broker is unresponsive or charging excessive fees to go back and collect tariffs due. Unfortunately, switching brokers in order to get your tariff refund isn’t easy, if at all possible. ‘You can work with another broker in a consulting capacity, but your options for now are limited,’ Quisenberry said.”
“How long will it take to see your money? Quisenberry says she’s telling her clients to expect between 60 and 90 days. And yes, there’s a cost. Firms like hers are service providers and this is an added service, so there are fees involved. ... One hidden cost that some fail to consider is taxes. Many of my clients who paid tariffs took a legitimate tax deduction for the cost in 2025. Tariff refunds made in 2026 will be taxable and that needs to be taken into consideration when a business owner is estimating their taxes due this year.” READ MORE
