Fox News and Fox Business personalities were hyping the supposed benefits of President Donald Trump's signature 2025 legislation known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on Tax Day, in part by pointing to Americans’ higher average tax refunds compared to the previous year. But the average tax refund increased by roughly $350, according to the most recent IRS data, a sum dwarfed by the additional costs imposed on Americans from Trump’s tariffs, increased gasoline prices stemming from his unauthorized Iran war, and cuts in government benefits that were also included in the OBBBA.
Research/Study
Fox's Tax Day celebration of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” fails to account for how he increased costs for Americans
Costs from Trump's tariffs, Iran war fallout, and benefit cuts amount to much more than the roughly $350 average Americans reportedly receive from his signature legislation
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Fox celebrated Trump’s tax cut legislation on Tax Day
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But Trump’s policies cost Americans far more than any extra refunds they may receive from his tax cuts
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- Reuters: “What the Trump tax breaks giveth, the gasoline pump taketh away.” Reuters reported that increased prices at the gasoline pump are “eat[ing] most of the larger tax refunds that people are seeing from new tax breaks on tips, Social Security retirement payments, overtime pay, car loan interest and state and local tax bills that were part of last year's Republican-backed tax-cut legislation.” Reuters further reported: “Economists at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research estimate that war-driven price spikes have pushed up Americans' average annual gasoline costs for this year by $857.” Reuters reported that multiple independent estimates of tax refund increases are higher than the roughly $350 average reported so far, ranging from $560 to $646, but the projected increase in Americans’ gasoline costs alone exceeds all but the Trump administration’s own comparably generous estimate of $1,000 in increased tax savings. [Reuters, 4/10/26]
- According to Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee, by the time the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s global tariffs, Americans had paid “an average of roughly $1,745 per family” in tariff-related costs. [Joint Economic Committee, 2/20/26]
- Yale’s Budget Lab: Trump’s newly imposed Section 122 tariffs will cost “between about $650 and $780 for the average household” if temporary, or “if they are instead made permanent … the household loss figures would be between $1,130 and $1,340.” [Yale’s Budget Lab, 4/2/26]
- An Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analysis shows that even before Trump’s Iran war spiked fuel prices, “taking all the policies of President Trump and the Republican majority in Congress into account, all but the richest Americans are paying higher taxes on average in 2026 than they did last year.” These policies include “dramatically increased tariffs,” “the termination of the Enhanced Premium Tax Credit” for enrollees in the Affordable Care Act marketplace, and “the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which overwhelmingly benefits the rich and corporations” and includes drastic cuts to Medicaid. ITEP summarized: “The combined impact of these policies in 2026 is a tax increase for the average American in all income groups except the richest 5 percent.” [Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 2/23/26]
- ITEP: “President Trump and Republicans describe OBBBA’s tax breaks for tips, overtime, car loan interest, and seniors as boons for the middle-class but these parts of OBBBA combined only make up about a tenth of its net tax cuts in 2026.” [Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 2/23/26]