U.S. President Donald Trump has lauded the most recent tax season as a win for average Americans. His administration, too, attributes the "greater than ever before" (1) refunds to the "Working Family Tax Cuts" (2) and "the great, big, beautiful bill" (3).
Indeed, some of the changes the administration introduced promised "no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security." Spokesman Kush Desai even said in a statement to NBC (4), "[The] vast majority of working-class seniors" and the "vast majority of everyday workers" will not pay any taxes on Social Security, tipped or overtime income. In theory this should raise tax refunds.
But while Trump has said "[People] are getting so much more money than they thought," the picture he paints gets more complicated when income enters the picture.
The latest IRS update (5) shows 77.8 million returns had been processed as of March 20, 2026, with an average refund increasing from $3,284 to $3,561 — a $277 bump from a year ago. But the portion of those reaping the greatest benefits from Trump's tax changes are those earning the most, not the working class families Trump's administration is targeting in its messaging.
Here's why the catch is in the details.
The 2026 filing season changes
The Tax Foundation (6) found Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" reduced individual taxes by roughly $129 billion for 2025, noting refunds "will undoubtedly rise for millions of taxpayers."
The reality, according to the Tax Policy Center (7), is that 60% of those tax savings from Trump's sweeping changes will benefit the richest 20% of households — those earning over $217,000.
And the savings are progressively greater the higher up the income ladder you go: A recent report by the progressive-leaning Institute On Taxation and Economic Policy (8) shows that those tax cuts disproportionately benefit the richest 5%, with the top 1% receiving $117 billion in tax cuts in 2026 — part of a $1 trillion reduction over the next 10 years.
The other catch is that with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (9), Trump has also eliminated more than $40 billion over 10 years in funding for IRS tax enforcement that was earmarked specifically for investigating tax evasion by the wealthy, reports the organization.
This effectively removes disincentives and oversight for prospective tax cheats, who are also some of the wealthiest. This matters because the ROI on investigating the richest 10% (10) is $12 for every dollar spent (with some estimates going as high as $26 dollars for every dollar spent).
"We have the richest Americans who control massive amounts of the country's wealth, who are literally able to opt out of the tax system entirely. Meanwhile, anybody who earns a salary is paying a lot of taxes," Ray Madoff, a professor at Boston College Law School who studies tax policy, told NBC (4).
Similarly, many corporations will see little or no corporate income tax and tax cuts for foreign investors in U.S. businesses by $32 billion in 2026.
That leaves the bottom 95% of taxpayers, who will see tax increases on average, "driven by expanded tariffs and income tax changes." Additionally, while the OBBBA extends earlier Trump tax provisions, it also enabled the termination of Biden's health tax credit, which aimed to reduce health insurance coverage costs for Americans.
What this means is that though the average filer's return may be up by $277, this average includes high-income earners and those who see greatest tax reductions, skewing the widely-publicized angle that Trump's tax changes favor "working Americans."
The reality for the remaining 95% of Americans
The reality, according to the Tax Policy Center (7), is that 60% of those tax savings from Trump's sweeping changes will benefit the richest 20% of households — those earning over $217,000.
And the savings are progressively greater the higher up the income ladder you go: A recent report by the progressive-leaning Institute On Taxation and Economic Policy (8) shows that those tax cuts disproportionately benefit the richest 5%, with the top 1% receiving $117 billion in tax cuts in 2026 — part of a $1 trillion reduction over the next 10 years.
The other catch is that with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (9), Trump has also eliminated more than $40 billion over 10 years in funding for IRS tax enforcement that was earmarked specifically for investigating tax evasion by the wealthy, reports the organization.
This effectively removes disincentives and oversight for prospective tax cheats, who are also some of the wealthiest. This matters because the ROI on investigating the richest 10% (10) is $12 for every dollar spent (with some estimates going as high as $26 dollars for every dollar spent).
"We have the richest Americans who control massive amounts of the country's wealth, who are literally able to opt out of the tax system entirely. Meanwhile, anybody who earns a salary is paying a lot of taxes," Ray Madoff, a professor at Boston College Law School who studies tax policy, told NBC (4).
Similarly, many corporations will see little or no corporate income tax and tax cuts for foreign investors in U.S. businesses by $32 billion in 2026.
That leaves the bottom 95% of taxpayers, who will see tax increases on average, "driven by expanded tariffs and income tax changes." Additionally, while the OBBBA extends earlier Trump tax provisions, it also enabled the termination of Biden's health tax credit, which aimed to reduce health insurance coverage costs for Americans.
What this means is that though the average filer's return may be up by $277, this average includes high-income earners and those who see greatest tax reductions, skewing the widely-publicized angle that Trump's tax changes favor "working Americans."
The reality for the remaining 95% of Americans
Instead, middle-income Americans will see a rise in taxes by an average of $900 in 2026, the ITEP report says. And depending on where you live, this average may be higher: The middle 60% of Americans who reside in Wyoming, Nebraska and Florida will pay most (between $1,430 and $1,240 on average, respectively).
And while the "no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security" does exist, it exists with considerable caveats that aren't as well publicized. This comes down to the way the taxes are structured and that they are only partial exemptions.
"We were disappointed," Sherie Cummings, a casino cocktail waitress on the Las Vegas strip, told NBC (4). "I feel like a lot of the servers, bartenders, waitresses, tip earners were gaslit by the 'no tax on tips.'" Filing with her husband, a bartender, she expected that she'd be able to write off the entirety of the $60,000 in tips the two brought in — a sizable portion of their joint wages. Instead they discovered the "no tax on tips" was capped at $25,000.
The tax cuts also exclude large groups such as railroad workers and truck drivers from overtime tax savings, while Social Security deductions include both low and higher earners.
"There's no hiding the fact that the last year of tax policy has driven up costs for most Americans [while] slashing them for the wealthy," said Michael Ettlinger, ITEP Senior Fellow and author of the report (11). "Tariffs and other federal tax increases have blindsided middle- and low-income taxpayers while the wealthy and corporations have received a hugely disproportionate share of the enacted tax cuts."
The shadow side of Trump's tax cuts
There is a cost to the tax cuts — it's not just free money in your pocket. ITEP (8) puts this in perspective: Tax cuts are services lost for the very Americans that would benefit most from them.
The $117 billion that is staying in the hands of the top 1% in 2026 is more than the combined budgets of the Department of Education, Department of Transportation, Department of Justice, the State Department, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The cumulative deductions from the OBBBA are projected to add $4.6 trillion to the federal government's debt over the coming decade (part of a cumulative $22 trillion projected from 2025 to 2034). To offset the lost federal revenue from the tax cuts, the White House is also spending $1.2 trillion less — with the majority of the cuts coming from health care.
This has "shifted the responsibility for funding for government toward working Americans while delivering substantial benefits to wealthy individuals, corporations and foreign investors, with long-term consequences for inequality and the federal budget," the report said (11).
This ongoing debt can hit the economy through rising interest rates, high inflation and other direct cost of living consequences to many Americans. Many others are at risk of losing food assistance and health insurance benefits.
"In short, this was not the time to add $4.6 trillion in debt by cutting taxes for people and companies that don't need it," writes ITEP (8).
Read More: Dave Ramsey says this 7-step plan ‘works every single time’ to kill debt, get rich in America — and that ‘anyone’ can do it
The net impact of Trump tax cuts
The latest changes will only exacerbate income inequality in 2026, says the report (11).
Tariffs still impact the highest-earning Americans, but they take up a much smaller portion of their income. Similarly, with the latest tax changes favoring high-income households, any costs attributed to tariffs are offset by the tax cuts favoring (8) this group.
What this looks like:
- The top 1 percent gets a net tax cut equal to 0.4% of their income
- The middle 20 percent sees a net tax increase equal to 1.2% of their income
- The poorest 20 percent sees a net tax increase equal to 3.1% of their income
The 2026 ITEP report (11) found that the Trump administration's most recent tax changes have "shifted the responsibility for funding for government toward working Americans while delivering substantial benefits to wealthy individuals, corporations and foreign investors, with long-term consequences for inequality and the federal budget."
While Trump urged (1) Americans not to "spend all of this money in one place!" for many Americans, the economic reality is far bleaker, leaving them with less discretionary income this tax season — and for an increasing majority, even necessities are drifting further beyond reach.
Article sources
While Trump urged (1) Americans not to "spend all of this money in one place!" for many Americans, the economic reality is far bleaker, leaving them with less discretionary income this tax season — and for an increasing majority, even necessities are drifting further beyond reach.
Article sources
