A new bill could create a tax rebate program

After the Supreme Court struck down a large portion of President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda last month, the possibility of getting tariff dividend checks was seemingly discarded too, experts said.

“Tariff dividends were a long shot from the beginning,” certified financial planner Stephen Kates, a financial analyst at Bankrate, told CNBC at the time. Any such broad-based benefit program would require legislation passed by Congress and “there does not appear to be sufficient political support,” Kates said. “The odds of this policy moving forward is now effectively zero.”

And then the “Tariff Refunds for Working Families Act” came along.

On Thursday, Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., introduced a bill that would create a new tax rebate for those hit by higher costs for everyday items due to Trump’s reciprocal tariffs. If enacted as drafted, the rebate would provide joint filers making an annual income of under $180,000 with a payment of $1,200, plus an additional $600 for each dependent child, starting in the 2026 tax year.

Tariffs are a tax on imports from foreign nations and are paid for by U.S. entities that import the item. Companies often bear some of the cost and pass on the rest to consumers through higher prices.

A paper published last month by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that U.S. firms and consumers bore “the bulk” — roughly 90% — of the economic burden of tariffs imposed in 2025. White House officials disputed that finding.

“This bill will return the money lost to Trump’s tariffs back to the people who paid the price,” Heinrich said in a release announcing his legislation.

The Supreme Court did not rule on potential tariff refunds, but “it appears without new legislation, the law dictates those who sent in the tariff checks, importers, are the ones who will be paid back even though they may not have been harmed,” said Tomas Philipson, a professor of public policy studies at the University of Chicago and former acting chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. 

After the high court’s ruling, the White House invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to enact new tariffs, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said “will result in virtually unchanged tariff revenue in 2026.”

A recent analysis by the Budget Lab at Yale found that the increase in prices due to tariffs through March 9 was expected to cost each household between $450 and $570, on average. If Section 122 tariffs are made permanent, the household loss figure would be between $770 and $940. The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee put the estimates closer to $2,500 per household.

“There is no way to completely undo the economic effects of tariffs that were enacted last year,” Bankrate’s Kates told CNBC in an email this week. He also said that direct payments could cause inflation to worsen.

As oil prices climb and global trade faces uncertainty, “introducing new stimulus, even if targeted to specific households, would be risky at a time when inflation pressures are rising,” Kates said.

Heinrich’s bill is part of the effort by Democrats to address affordability issues ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, experts say. The expanding U.S. war in the Middle East has only amplified cost-of-living concerns as energy prices surge.

Republicans, too, have raised the idea of making direct distributions to Americans in the lead-up to November’s midterm elections.

“While both parties are eager to claim credit for a popular policy ahead of the midterm elections, injecting additional money into the economy could also intensify the very price increases that the refunds are intended to address,” Kates said.

However, since companies are unlikely to lower their prices to reflect the rollback of Trump’s tariff agenda, directing government refunds to the households and businesses that bore some of the burden “could make some sense,” said Brett House, an economics professor at Columbia Business School. 

Further, “since both sides of the aisle have proposed bills to implement these refunds, it should be possible to find bipartisan support for this,” House said.

The idea for stimulus checks funded with tariff revenue was first floated by the president back in July. That summer, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced the American Worker Rebate Act of 2025. The Senate referred the bill to the Committee on Finance, where it remains.

Later in 2025, Trump said that a rebate check with the money his tariffs had generated would be forthcoming.

“A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,” the president wrote in a post on Truth Social in November.

At the end of last year, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett also said that “the president will bring forth a proposal to Congress to make that happen.”

When asked about tariff rebates in January, Trump said the checks would come “toward the end of the year.”

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