American families already paid for Trump’s tariffs at grocery stores, electronics counters, clothing stores, and everywhere else businesses passed their increased import costs along. Those tariffs cost the average American household $2,300.

Now billions of dollars are being refunded, but the families who absorbed those costs are largely being left out.

The Supreme Court ruled in February that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize Trump’s sweeping tariffs. Since then, roughly $100 billion has been refunded to importers, creating an enormous question that Congress cannot ignore. Who ultimately gets the money back when businesses have already passed much of the cost on to their customers?

America’s biggest corporations stand to benefit. Apple received a roughly $2.2 billion refund, Walmart expects about $2.4 billion, and Amazon received roughly $600 million. Working people paid higher prices while these tariffs were in effect. Letting corporations keep the refunds too risks turning an unlawful tariff regime into another corporate windfall.

Congress already has a starting point. The Tariff Refunds for Working Families Act, introduced by Sen. Martin Heinrich, would establish direct rebates of $600 for qualifying individuals, $1,200 for qualifying married couples filing jointly, and an additional $600 for each dependent child.

But Congress should make the principle even broader and unmistakable. If the federal government collected money that ultimately came out of household budgets, working families deserve direct relief. And when corporations can identify tariff costs they passed directly to customers before receiving refunds themselves, they should return that money to those customers.

Working people should not pay the tariff coming and going while Big Business pockets the refund. Tell Congress to pass legislation guaranteeing that Trump’s tariff refunds go back to the households that paid the price.