Almost immediately after passing a giant tax cut last summer, many Republicans began to eagerly anticipate this year’s Tax Day.
They had written the law so that many of its new benefits would arrive in the form of larger tax refunds this year. The hope was that Americans would take notice of the bigger cash payments, a result of making several new tax cuts retroactive to the start of 2025, and reward Republicans in the fall’s midterm elections.
President Trump’s tax cuts did succeed in increasing refunds this year. The average so far is $3,462, about $350, or 11 percent, larger than a year ago, according to Internal Revenue Service data through April 3.
But that’s well below what Mr. Trump initially promised. The White House had projected that the average refund would grow by $1,000 or more, echoing some Wall Street analysts.
The increase was smaller than expected even though many Americans are taking advantage of the new tax cuts. More than 53 million people have claimed at least one of the cuts reflecting Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign promises, which include new tax breaks on tips and overtime, along with new deductions for seniors and some auto-loan interest, according to Treasury officials.
The reason for the shortcoming is most likely that more of the tax relief from the law has gone toward reducing what people owe the I.R.S. when they file, rather than increasing refunds. And lowering people’s tax bills may be a less politically persuasive form of relief than a big refund, highlighting the challenge that Republicans now face in trying to sell the American public on the law.
Still, Republicans and the Trump administration have continued to hail the tax law’s benefits. Frank Bisignano, the chief executive of the I.R.S., is scheduled to testify before the Senate on Wednesday about this year’s filing season. Mr. Trump, who has spent much of his first term promoting these policies, plans to travel to Nevada on Thursday to again tout the tax cut on tips.
It is always difficult to wring much political reward out of a tax cut. Republicans lost the House in 2018 despite passing a major tax cut at the end of 2017. Political scientists generally see a weak relationship between policy changes and voter attitudes. Some studies have shown that people who received a new tax benefit credited the additional funds to the person who helped them file their taxes, rather than the political party that passed the law.
Kimberly Greacen is a 43-year-old elementary school teacher and single mother in Fayetteville, N.Y. She makes about $58,000 a year, she said, and her tax refund was $4,600, roughly $2,000 more than she expected. She said that she was not sure why her refund was so large, but that in any case she planned to use the extra money to help pay for her son’s travel baseball.
“I’m super grateful for any help that I can get, so a larger tax refund definitely helps,” Ms. Greacen said. “But that is not going to affect how I vote in the future at all. I have voted for Republicans, but I am not a Republican. My beliefs still align much more with the Democratic Party.”
Even with the larger average refund, last year’s tax law was going to be complicated to pitch to the public. Much of it was dedicated to continuing the tax cuts that Republicans passed in 2017, an expensive extension that did not result in any noticeable tax savings for Americans. The tax cuts that Republicans added on top of the extension apply only to specific taxpayers, like people who work for tips or can earn overtime.
In a poll conducted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a centrist think tank, 38 percent of taxpayers said they did not notice a difference in their taxes this year. Roughly a quarter said the law had harmed them, while a quarter said it had helped them.
The law also included cuts to Medicaid and food stamps. Those changes will affect smaller slices of the population, but they mean that the law harms poor people more than it helps. In general, higher-income Americans gained the most from the tax cut overall.
The war in Iran has disrupted global oil supplies and raised costs across the economy just as tax season was getting underway. Some analysts have found that the increase in gas prices could cancel out whatever stimulus emerged from the Trump tax cuts.
Still, for many Americans, tax cuts will always be popular. Brianna Tighe is a human-resources professional who lives in the suburbs of Minneapolis. She and her husband earned roughly $200,000 last year, she said, and her refund was over $3,000, her first in a couple of years.
Ms. Tighe said that she leaned somewhat toward Republicans to begin with, but that policies like last year’s tax cut made her feel more favorably toward the party.
“I don’t hear anyone complaining about more money in their pockets at the end of the day,” she said.
Andrew Duehren covers tax policy for The Times from Washington.
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