US Senate Democrats Introduce Bill to Enforce Trump’s Illegal Tax Refunds
A group of 22 US Senate Democrats on Monday introduced legislation that would require President Donald Trump’s administration to return in full within 180 days all revenue, including interest, collected from the US Supreme Court.
The legislation would require the Customs and Border Protection agency, which collects taxes at US ports of entry, to prioritize small businesses.
The Supreme Court did not issue instructions on any refunds Friday when it struck down Trump’s broad tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, instead sending the case back to a lower commercial court to decide next steps.
The Democrats’ legislation would require CBP to refund all IEEPA-based taxes illegally imposed by Trump, along with interest, even if the import duties are terminated, or “terminated” by CBP.
The 22 Democrats who sponsored the bill include Senate Minerals Leader Chuck Schumer and Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrats on the Senate Finance, Small Business and Foreign Relations committee, respectively.
“Senate Democrats will continue to fight to strengthen Donald Trump’s trade and economic tariffs,” Wyden said in a statement. “The first important step is to help the people who need it most, by putting money back into the pockets of small businesses and producers as quickly as possible.”
A spokesman for Democratic Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota declined to comment on whether the Democrats’ bill would be considered.
But given that the bill has just been introduced and needs to be reviewed by the committee, the decision to review may be some way out.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson told reporters that the Republican-controlled House will remove the question about returning tax money.
“The White House is going to fix that, and we have to give them the time and space to do it. This is an unprecedented event, so there’s no playbook to follow,” said Johnson, a Louisiana Republican. “I think they (the White House) have good arguments on their side, and we’ll see how it shakes out. That’s not something that affects the House right now.”
White House spokesman Kush Desai responded to the law by saying that Democrats have failed to fulfill their promises to help US manufacturing, end bad trade agreements, and lower drug prices.
“President Trump has used tariffs to deliver where Democrats can only talk, so Democrats are rolling up their sleeves to undermine President Trump and the American people — sad but not surprising,” Desai said in an emailed statement.
On Sunday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration would follow the lower courts’ decision on the refund. “We will follow what they decide, but it could be weeks or months until we hear from them,” Bessent told CNN.
CBP must stop collecting the IEEPA tax at 12:01 am EST (0501 GMT) on Tuesday.
Reuters reported on Friday that the Supreme Court’s decision made IEEPA’s tax collection of more than $175 billion contingent on potential refunds, based on estimates by Penn-Wharton Budget Model economists.
Their estimates from a low-level forecasting model showed that IEEPA-based pricing generated more than $500 million per day in gross revenue.
(Reporting by David Lawder; additional reporting by David Morgan in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
