Will Americans Keep Paying a ‘Tariff Tax’?

When Eileen Nusselt and Gio Cox got married earlier this year, they skipped the traditional registry and asked their guests to donate to a home renovation fund. Yet as tariffs have pushed up the price of materials like lumber and paint, that money isn’t going as far as they expected. 

“We’re having to cut off projects that we really want to do,” said Cox, who lives with his wife in Charleston, South Carolina.

Many of the Trump administration’s signature tariffs were struck down earlier this year, but the couple doesn’t expect prices to fall anytime soon. “What incentive do any of these big companies have to lower their prices?” Nusselt asked. Especially, she added, “if they’re getting money back” from the government in the form of tariff refunds.

After the Supreme Court ruled in February that the Trump administration lacked the authority under emergency economic powers to levy many of its tariffs, the Court of International Trade ordered the federal government to process refunds — plus interest — to the more than 330,000 companies that have paid roughly $166 billion in tariffs now considered illegal. Since then, more than 2,000 companies have filed suit against the federal government to demand their refunds.

American consumers, however, will likely not be compensated for the tariff costs they bore, passed on through higher prices. Indeed, as taxpayers, they may be responsible for the interest that accrues each day the government does not process refunds.

But the cost of tariffs largely fell on shoppers, not companies.

Transferring Tariff Costs

According to analysis from the Budget Lab at Yale, prices of consumer goods (excluding more volatile food and energy) rose more than 2% throughout 2025 and into January 2026, reversing recent declines and adding to evidence that the costs of tariffs are being passed on to consumers. 

Tariffs accounted for an estimated 86% of the rise in prices for imported household goods through January, with the passthrough even more pronounced for long-lasting durable goods like cars, appliances and furniture, the Yale researchers found.

Some company leaders have spoken publicly about incorporating tariffs into their pricing. In a call with investors last May, Walmart CEO Doug McMillion said the retail behemoth would “do our best to keep our prices as low as possible,” but also that “higher tariffs will result in higher prices.” In an August 2025 earnings call, Home Depot Executive Vice President of Merchandising Billy Bastek spoke of “some modest price movement” due to tariffs.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told CNBC in January that the company stocked up on items  before the tariffs were instituted to keep prices low, but that supply ran out last fall. “You start to see some of the tariffs creep into some of the prices,” he said.

An analysis by congressional Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee found that American consumers paid more than $231 billion in total tariff costs between February 2025 and January 2026, amounting to roughly $1,745 per household.

“Tariffs are regressive in nature, and they impact low- and middle-income families more than wealthy individuals,” said Ryan Mulholland, a senior fellow focused on international economic policy at the liberal think tank Center for American Progress. Lower-income people not only spend a greater share of their income, they’re also more likely to buy cheaper, imported items — the kind likely subject to tariffs. At the same time, tariffs may contribute to inflation more broadly, which also disproportionately affects households with less financial flexibility.

“As budgets get tighter, tariff pressures bite more,” said Mulholland. Indeed, researchers at the Budget Lab at Yale found that, as a share of income, tariffs may burden the poorest households more than three times as much as the wealthiest.

Currently, only “importers of record” are entitled to refunds per U.S. trade law, and companies don’t have a legal obligation to pass any of that money on to the consumers who paid higher prices.

Potential Class Action Lawsuits

While companies are pursuing tariff refunds and the Trump administration is levying new global tariffs to replace what was struck down, some consumers are filing their own lawsuits seeking relief for higher prices paid because of tariffs.

Lawsuits have been filed against at least five corporations that plaintiffs say raised prices to pay for tariffs — costs set to be refunded to companies. The proposed class action suits target Costco, EssilorLuxottica (the maker of Ray-Ban sunglasses), activewear company Fabletics, UPS and FedEx.

“Representing consumers as long as I have, I know that every penny counts,” said John Yanchunis, a lawyer with consumer law firm Morgan & Morgan who is representing a Florida resident in a lawsuit against FedEx. Plaintiff Matthew Reiser was charged tariff costs as well as a customs processing fee when purchasing a pair of Yonex PC Eclipsion 5 Clay tennis shoes from Germany that were shipped by FedEx earlier this year. About two weeks after he paid 92.95 euros for the shoes plus 24 euros for FedEx International Economy shipping, Reiser received an invoice from FedEx requesting an “import charge payment” of $36, which he paid.

“He has a right to get that back — he doesn’t need to wait until FedEx receives a refund,” Yanchunis said. FedEx said it would refund customers who paid tariff costs if the company receives a refund, but the lawsuit notes such a promise “creates no legally enforceable obligation” to do so and is “contingent on future government and court guidance that may never materialize.”

The FedEx lawsuit is fairly straightforward, Yanchunis said, because the cost of the tariff is listed on Reiser’s receipt. But Yanchunis’ firm is also investigating potential cases against some retailers, which are “a little more complicated,” he said, since it’s difficult to know how they factored in President Donald Trump’s higher tariffs when setting their prices. As a result, the firm is working with an economist to ascertain how tariffs were specifically embedded into company pricing.

In the absence of government action, the class action lawyer said he sometimes “takes the place of regulators.” 

Who Else May Benefit?

Meanwhile, hedge funds and other Wall Street firms are increasingly buying importers’ claims to refunds; Newsweek reported that claims trading for 20 cents on the dollar pre-ruling are now being offered for as much as 60 cents on the dollar. Such a strategy allows companies to get cash quickly rather than wait months or years for their government payouts — and may make investors winners in the tariff refund battle, too.

In early March, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote a letter to senior Trump administration officials deploring how “investment banks swooped in to exploit the administration’s foot-dragging in complying with the law.”

Following the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling, a group of Democratic senators, including Markey, introduced legislation that would require the government to quickly set up a system to process businesses’ refund payments.

But what about ordinary Americans? Some politicians have proposed tax legislation that would pay tariff “rebates” to households, including a Senate bill sponsored by Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and a separate House bill introduced by Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas).

Nusselt suggested that big companies that raised prices because of tariffs shouldn’t receive refunds unless they can show how they’ll pass money on to their customers.

But even distributing refunds to companies in the first place will be logistically difficult, which is why Customs and Border Protection asked the Court of International Trade for more time to develop its refund processing system, a request that was approved.

“Yeah, we’re never seeing that money,” Cox said. “It’s messed up — and we won’t just be paying for it once,” he added, noting that corporations have now realized that many consumers will pay higher prices.

“We’ll be paying the tariff tax forever,” he said.

Copyright 2026 Capital & Main