Can You Get a Big Tax Rebate Check? Here’s the latest.

After the Supreme Court ruled against President Donald Trump’s sweeping sales tax, some Democrats are calling for refunds to be sent to the American people, the latest speculative plan to redistribute income to everyday Americans.

The nation’s highest court on February 20 ruled that Trump does not have the power to impose tariffs on his own under the emergency powers law, which he has used as part of his foreign policy strategy with constantly changing levels of target countries.

Democrats including Gov. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is seeking a refund of at least $1,700 per household, with Pritzker sending the Trump administration an invoice for that amount for each household in his state.

“Donald Trump has been illegally taxing your purchases, furniture, and cars for over a year. It’s time for a refund,” Newsom said.

Their opinion follows months of speculation about Trump’s long-running plan to send $2,000 tax rebate checks to some Americans. The fate of that program is not yet clear.

Meanwhile, Trump has announced plans to freeze tariffs using a variety of legislative measures.

The tax rebate looks long term amid doubts

Americans have felt the impact of costs, from the higher costs of products they often buy to surprise tax bills in the mail. The average American family has paid more than $1,700 in taxes since January, according to a report by Democrats to the Congress Joint Economic Committee. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation said in a previous report in February that rates would cost each household an average of $1,000 by 2025.

When Trump first floated the idea of ​​getting discounts for Americans, it seemed like a welcome relief to some. Some say they will believe it when they see it.

Checks have never had a specific path forward, experts say. Tax analysts said the tax revenue would not be enough to send $2,000 to Americans, and the details of the checks, including how and when they would be sent, were up in the air.

“It’s not clear to me that they would happen,” said Steven Durlauf, an economist and director of the Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy.

Trump first suggested that tax revenue could be used to send checks to Americans by 2025. Since then, the number of proposed checks and their timeline have varied. In an interview on January 7 with the New York Times, Trump seemed to forget that he had promised them completely, and then he said that checks of about $ 2,000 will be sent to the American people “in the middle” by the end of 2026.

But checks tied to tax dollars will never happen, Durlauf said. There is no precedent or clear legal basis for the president to distribute tax money to Americans in the form of checks, so if any type of stimulus check were to happen, it would likely come from another source of funds controlled by Trump, he said.

Stimulus checks sent at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic have been authorized by Congress at different times, Durlauf said. In contrast, personal tax rebate checks have already been floated in Congress but have not moved forward. In July 2025, Sen. Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, introduced the American Workforce Reduction Act to provide at least $600 in tax credits to eligible individuals, but the measure did not receive further action in committee.

And while Trump suggested that the $1,776 in checks sent to military members during the holidays came from tax dollars, they actually came from military housing funds allocated by Congress to the Department of Defense.

Businesses are winning their fight for refunds

The Supreme Court ruling was a victory for thousands of companies, including importers such as Costco, Revlon and Goodyear Tires, who sued to recover billions in tariffs.

The Trump administration has said in court that the companies will get their money back if the Supreme Court overturns the charges. But those returns may be a long way off. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Reuters in January that the payments could be spread over weeks or a year.

“It would be a complete mess, and it’s almost impossible for our country to pay,” Trump said earlier on social media in hopes of getting the money back. On February 20, he said during a press conference that the Supreme Court did not talk about how the refund would work.

For Americans wondering if the tax refund requirement will end hopes of a stimulus check, Durlauf said cause and effect are not so clear-cut. The tax money wouldn’t have paid the checks to begin with, and it may have been linked only to Trump’s tax money to regain support after the tariffs proved unpopular, Durlauf said.

“The truth is, it wasn’t like that before, and it’s very unlikely now,” Durlauf said of the taxpayer refund checks.

Contributing: Bart Jansen, Maureen Groppe, Kinsey Crowley and Daniel de Visé, USA TODAY; Reuters

(This story has been updated to add new information and add a video.)

This article first appeared in USA TODAY: Can you get a big tax credit check? Here’s the latest.

Reporting by Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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