Treasury Secretary Says New Tax Cuts ‘Starting to Kick In Now’

The IRS announced the 2026 filing season started this week.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks onstage at Lincoln Center in New York City, on Dec. 03, 2025. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images for The New York Times

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that tax policies passed in legislation last year are going into effect now, at the start of the 2026 tax filing season.

“President Trump’s policies that we put in place last year are really starting to kick in now,” he said on Fox News’s “Hannity.”

“We’re [going to] see substantial refunds for working Americans,” Bessent told host Sean Hannity. “They’re [going to] change their withholding and have bigger take-home pay every two weeks, every month. So, it’s really an exciting time.”

He later forecast that there will be lower gas prices, lower rents, and rising wages across the United States that will trigger a “non-inflationary boom” that may “extend for several years.”

The IRS said that multiple new tax law provisions under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will take effect this year, according to a January news release. The tax revenue agency anticipates that about 164 million individual returns will be submitted for the 2026 season.

Over the past several weeks, President Donald Trump, Bessent, and other White House officials have sought to highlight tax provisions under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, saying they would benefit American families.

Earlier in January, Trump announced several executive actions targeting the U.S. housing market, including an order that could bar institutional investing companies from purchasing more single-family homes, as he framed the decision as a means for younger people to gain a better chance at purchasing a home.

On Monday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said it anticipates that around 164 million individual tax returns for the 2025 tax year will be filed ahead of the April 15 deadline. The tax season started on Jan. 26, meaning that Americans can now file their taxes from the previous year.

The average refund amount last year was $3,167, according to IRS data. Bessent has said on several occasions that the administration is expecting bigger refunds in 2026.

After the 2025 tax changes under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act were signed, the IRS did not update withholding tables for employers, and many workers will see the impact of the law when filing their returns this year, it said.

Bessent has served as acting commissioner of the IRS, although the agency’s chief executive is Frank Bisignano, also the head of the Social Security Administration. Bisignano was named to the IRS position in October.

Democrats in Congress have been largely critical of Trump’s policies, including his tariffs, and have said he has triggered what they’ve called an “affordability crisis” in the United States.

In a statement on Jan. 15, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the party will focus heavily on economic issues, namely housing prices, ahead of the midterm elections in November.

“Housing costs have been skyrocketing. Rent is too high and eating away at the ability for people to save money to own a home. The average age of a first-time homebuyer just hit a record high of over 40 years old,” Schumer said in his statement before pivoting to criticism of the Trump administration’s policies.

The Democratic Party will be “making housing affordability a national priority,” he added as he announced the party’s “Opportunity Starts at Home” Agenda.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.