Will Trump waive taxes for people earning under $150k? — Before 2027

- [2025-07-04] The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA, Public Law 119-21) was signed into law, enacting targeted deductions ("no tax on tips," "no tax on overtime," senior deduction) phased out around $150,000 MAGI, but it did not waive or zero out income tax for all earners under $150,000 — it left the existing rate brackets intact. (https://irs.gov/newsroom/one-big-beautiful-bill-provisions-individuals-and-workers) - [2026-02-20] The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Learning Resources v. Trump that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs, striking down the main tariff revenue source that officials had cited as funding for any future "no tax under $150k" or dividend plan. On February 20, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down sweeping tariffs imposed by President Trump under IEEPA, holding that the president lacked authority to impose tariffs under that statute. (https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2026/02/the-supreme-court-ends-ieepa-tariffs) - [2026-02-24] Following the Supreme Court's decision, President Trump promptly employed other statutory authorities to impose 10 percent tariffs on all countries effective February 24, 2026 , under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. (https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2026/03/supreme-court-ieepa-ruling-and-new-us-tariffs-implications-for-civil) - [2026-07-24] The 10% global tariff surcharge under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 hit its 150-day legal limit on July 24, 2026, and Congress let it lapse rather than extend it , replaced the same day by a narrower Section 301 tariff regime not tied to any household-payment proposal. (https://govtschemes.org/2000-tariff-dividend-fact-check/) - [2026-09-09] At the GOP midterm convention in Dallas, Trump promised a $5,000 "dividend" to every adult citizen if Republicans keep Congress, an escalation of — not progress toward enacting — his earlier $2,000 dividend promise; this is framed as a tariff-revenue payout, not an income-tax waiver, and remains unlegislated. (https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-promised-2000-tariff-dividends-materialized-10-months/story?id=136329468) - [2026-09-10] As of this fact-check, no tariff rebate check legislation has passed the House, passed the Senate, or reached the president's desk , and Treasury and IRS officials have not announced a payment schedule, an application process, or an eligibility list, because none of those things currently exist in law . No separate "zero income tax under $150k" bill is noted as advancing. (https://govtschemes.org/2000-tariff-dividend-fact-check/) - [2026-09-10] Several narrower rebate/tax bills remain stuck in committee: the American Worker Rebate Act and the Tariff Refunds for Working Families Act... none of them authorizes a flat $2,000 payment, and none has passed either chamber ; none of these bills zeroes out federal income tax for sub-$150k earners. (https://govtschemes.org/2000-tariff-dividend-fact-check/) - [2026-10-06] Separately, importer-level IEEPA tariff refunds continue processing via the CBP CAPE system (Phase 3 opening Oct. 6, 2026), which is an importer/business refund mechanism, not a household income-tax waiver. (https://www.tariffstool.com/guides/tariff-dividend-trump-2000-check-explained) - [2025-03-11] (Background, not current) Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick first floated the "no tax under $150,000" idea in March 2025, describing it as an aspirational goal contingent on balancing the federal budget, not an active legislative proposal. (https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-eliminate-tax-people-earning-less-150000-howard-lutnick-2044049) - [2026-10-10] No executive order, bill text, or enacted law has been identified that sets federal income tax to 0% for earners under $150,000 for any tax year (2025 or 2026); IRS's own published 2026 brackets still run from 10% to 37% with no $150k zero-tax threshold. BOTTOM LINE: As of October 2026, "no tax under $150k" remains an unfulfilled aspiration repeatedly voiced by Trump and Lutnick, overtaken in practice by the (also unenacted) tariff "dividend"/rebate proposals; the underlying tariff funding mechanism has been struck down by the Supreme Court and its replacement has since lapsed, and no bill zeroing out income tax for sub-$150k earners has passed Congress or been signed into law. NOT FOUND: No evidence of any executive order explicitly waiving income taxes for sub-$150k earners; no congressional bill text proposing a 0% income tax rate for that bracket; no official IRS/Treasury statement describing such a waiver as planned or scheduled.

- [2025-03-12] Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick first floated the idea publicly, saying on CBS News that "I know what his goal is: No tax for anybody who makes less than $150,000 a year. That's his goal. That's what I'm working for." He immediately caveated it as aspirational, tied to balancing the budget. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/12-million-households-save-38-153936945.html - [2025-03-15] Lutnick clarified the plan was conditional: "When the President balances the budget, his first move is going to be—he has suggested that he would like to waive taxes for people earning under $150,000. That's aspirational." The U.S. federal budget has not been balanced since 2001, per multiple reports. https://tuzarapost.substack.com/p/us-commerce-secretary-howard-lutnick - [2025-07-04] Instead of full elimination, Congress passed the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (H.R.1, Public Law 119-21), which created only partial, narrow carve-outs — e.g., a new above-the-line deduction through 2028 of up to $25,000 for qualified tip income and $12,500/$25,000 for overtime, both phasing out above $150,000 MAGI — not a full income-tax waiver for incomes under $150k. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1 - [2025-11-27 / 2025-12-02] Trump revived the broader "eliminate income tax" idea rhetorically (not specifically the $150k threshold), telling service members "Over the next couple of years, I think we'll … be cutting income tax — could be almost completely cutting it, because the money we're taking in is going to be so large," and repeating a similar claim at a Dec. 2 Cabinet meeting. https://www.politifact.com/article/2025/dec/03/trump-replace-income-tax-tariffs-revenue/ - [2025-12-03] PolitiFact's analysis found the federal income tax brought in about $2.4 trillion in 2024, more than 14 times what Trump's second-term tariffs are generating, and "It is not remotely possible that tariffs could be used to eliminate the income tax." https://www.politifact.com/article/2025/dec/03/trump-replace-income-tax-tariffs-revenue/ - [2025-12-03] Even under generous projections, tariffs would generate only $191 billion in 2026 revenue, "peanuts compared with the nearly $2.43 trillion collected in federal income taxes." https://www.politifact.com/article/2025/dec/03/trump-replace-income-tax-tariffs-revenue/ - [2025 experts] Tax-law academics dismissed the feasibility of this swap: one law professor said tariffs "probably can't even supply even as much of 10 percent of the revenues derived from U.S. individual income tax revenues alone" while another called the idea "complete fantasy." https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-proposes-eliminating-income-tax-11123769 - [No formal bill found] A search of Congress.gov for 2025-2026 tax bills found no pending legislation that would zero out federal income tax for all filers earning under $150,000; existing bills (No Tax on Tips Act, OBBBA provisions, FairTax Act) address narrower deductions or a wholesale national sales tax replacement, not this specific threshold-based full exemption. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1 - [Base rate pattern] This is one of several "no tax on X" promises (tips, overtime, Social Security, and now <$150k income) made since Trump's 2024 campaign; of these, only the narrower deduction-based versions (tips, overtime, up to a cap) were enacted via OBBBA by mid-2025, while the sweeping full-exemption promises (Social Security tax elimination, <$150k full exemption) remain unenacted as rhetorical goals over a year into the term. https://www.kiplinger.com/taxes/tax-law/trump-plan-to-eliminate-income-tax-what-to-know-now - [Commentary] An early outside observer predicted low odds of passage, noting "Trump has to get this to pass Congress and I don't think he can do it... he has done few of the major things he has promised." https://sciencenews22.substack.com/p/no-income-for-americans-earning-under BOTTOM LINE: The reference class is "sweeping Trump tax-elimination promises" — a category where narrow, capped versions (tips/overtime deductions) got enacted via ordinary legislation within a year, but full, unconditional income-tax waivers for an entire income bracket have never been enacted historically and remain explicitly "aspirational," contingent on an unprecedented balanced budget, and economically implausible given tariff revenue is roughly 1/10th to 1/14th of what would be needed; no bill or executive order matching the question's criteria has been introduced as of October 2026. NOT FOUND: No evidence of any formal executive order, bill introduced in Congress, or enacted law that specifically waives/zeroes federal income tax for earners under $150,000; no Kalshi/Polymarket-style outside forecaster estimates or polling specifically on this proposal were found.

YES means: before January 1, 2027, either an executive order/action or a signed law goes into effect that waives, zeroes out, or nullifies federal income tax liability for people earning under $150,000 for any tax year — satisfying the Kalshi rule's literal text. - [2026-09-09] Trump escalated his earlier rebate pledge into a promise of a **$5,000 "dividend"** to every adult citizen contingent on Republicans retaining Congress, raised at the Dallas GOP midterm convention — a larger and more politically urgent figure than the original $2,000 pitch. Trump said in August that he would give that payment to every adult citizen in the U.S. if Republicans maintain control of the House and Senate in November's elections. - [2026-09-12] A TaxProf Blog quantitative analysis found that if Trump's $5,000-per-adult dividend were enacted as a refundable transfer, it would function like a demogrant that plausibly could eliminate positive net income tax liability for more than half of American families, given that many joint filers owe $10,000 in federal income tax—two Trump dividends—at $119,667 of gross income , and the analysis put the break-even point near $120,000 — close to, though short of, the $150k threshold. This is the clearest existing mechanism by which a "waiver" of income tax for most sub-$150k households could occur without a formal rate change. - [2026-10-01] PBS/PolitiFact's midterm fact-check confirms the dividend promise remains alive and attached to the election outcome, not yet legislated; the federal government collected almost $363 billion in tariff duties between January 2025 and April 2026, much of which is being refunded to American companies because the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs Trump used as justification, with those refunds going to companies, not consumers — meaning any dividend-as-tax-offset still needs a fresh funding/legislative vehicle, but the political promise is current and tied to a concrete trigger (a GOP win in November 2026). - [2026-10-05] Trump signed an executive order on diesel fuel excise tax that demonstrates his administration's willingness to use unilateral executive action on tax matters rather than wait for Congress: the executive order instructs the Internal Revenue Service to waive penalties on 'dyed diesel' for highway use through the end of the year, and instructs officials to explore ways to forgive the tax obligations, including potentially legislation. This is a live precedent for Trump directing IRS action to "forgive" a tax obligation by EO within days of signing — the same legal playbook (IRS directive via EO) that the Kalshi rules explicitly recognize as sufficient for YES if applied to income tax. - [2025-12-21] White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett had already signaled fiscal room was opening for a tariff-funded household payment: "The deficit relative to last year is down by $600 billion and so, in the summer, I wasn't so sure that there was space for a check like that. But now I'm pretty sure that there is, and so, I would expect that in the new year, the president will bring forth a proposal to Congress to make that happen." This shows an administration official (not just Trump rhetorically) committing to bring a formal proposal to Congress. - [2026-03-13] Legislative vehicles for a rebate already exist and could be amended/fast-tracked: the idea for stimulus checks funded with tariff revenue was first floated by the president back in July, after which Sen. Josh Hawley introduced the American Worker Rebate Act of 2025, which the Senate referred to the Committee on Finance, where it remains — meaning a bill shell already sits in Finance Committee that could, in principle, be amended to include a sub-$150k zero-tax provision and move quickly in a lame-duck session. - [2026-01-07 reported] Trump has repeatedly set near-term timelines for action, saying when asked about a dividend check, "I would say toward the end of the year," showing a pattern of naming an imminent (pre-2027) deadline for payout/tax-relief action, consistent with the question's own Jan 1, 2027 cutoff. - [2026-03-13] Separately, Sen. Heinrich's competing rebate bill shows bipartisan-adjacent legislative activity in this space: if enacted as drafted, the rebate would provide joint filers making an annual income of under $180,000 with a payment of $1,200, plus an additional $600 for each dependent child, starting in the 2026 tax year — demonstrating that Congress already has multiple live drafting templates using income thresholds near $150-180k that could be merged into a $150k-specific income-tax-zeroing bill under electoral pressure. - Historical base rate for speed: Congress passed the OBBBA's narrower $150k-threshold carve-outs (tips/overtime deductions) within roughly six months of being proposed in 2025, showing that when Trump attaches a concrete income threshold to a priority bill with unified GOP government, enactment within a single legislative cycle is achievable — the same $150k figure is already embedded in multiple enacted and proposed provisions, lowering the legislative-drafting barrier to a dedicated $150k income-tax-zero bill. BOTTOM LINE: The most plausible — though still narrow — path to YES is a post-midterm (November 2026) legislative sprint in which a GOP-controlled Congress fast-tracks Trump's escalated $5,000 dividend or a merged rebate bill using the already-familiar $150,000 threshold, which tax analysts calculate could zero out net federal income tax liability for roughly half of sub-$150k households; separately, Trump's demonstrated willingness (Oct. 5 diesel order) to direct IRS tax forgiveness unilaterally via executive order shows the legal mechanism for a YES resolution already exists and has been used on a smaller tax category this month. NOT FOUND: No bill text, draft, or executive order specifically proposing to set federal income tax to 0% for earners under $150,000; no official administration statement that the dividend/rebate would be structured as a tax-rate waiver rather than a separate payment; no confirmation that any sub-$150k income-tax-zero proposal has been scheduled for a vote in the current lame-duck session.

YES means: Before Jan 1, 2027, the President (via executive order/action) or Congress (via enacted law) waives, ends, zeroes out, or nullifies federal income tax for any tax year for persons/households earning under $150,000 — not merely a partial deduction or rebate. - [2025-03-21] The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget modeled the actual fiscal mechanics of this specific proposal and found that waiving all taxes for those making less than $150,000 per year would reduce revenue by roughly $10 trillion through 2035 if applied to income taxes only and $15 trillion if applied to employee-side payroll taxes as well , and separately that if enacted after achieving a projected balanced budget, the policy would still increase projected debt from about 80 percent of GDP to between about 110 and 120 percent of GDP by 2035 — i.e., even the "best case" fiscal condition Lutnick set as a precondition does not make the policy affordable. - [2025-03-21] CRFB notes achieving an immediate balanced budget and maintaining it would require at least $22 trillion of savings over a decade, while achieving balance by 2035 might require around $17 trillion — a precondition (balanced budget) that itself remains entirely unmet and nowhere near enactment, let alone the tax waiver layered atop it. - [2026-10-10 bottom line, legislative calendar] As of Oct 1, 2026, the House had adjourned for the midterm recess with the House having adjourned and not scheduled to reconvene until after the midterm elections, narrowing the legislative calendar, with limited time remaining in 2026 for both chambers to find consensus and pass legislation , meaning no new major tax bill (let alone one as fiscally radical as a full sub-$150k tax waiver) has a realistic path to floor votes before year-end. - [2026-10-01] The same tracker confirms the only "must-pass" vehicles left in the 2026 calendar are routine items — at the beginning of September, Congress passed a short-term continuing resolution (CR) funding the government through December 12 — with the other major vehicle being the NDAA; neither is a plausible carrier for a $10–15 trillion tax-cut rider. - [2026-08-26] Confirming the compressed floor-time constraint independent of the shutdown fights, Congress had only a brief post-recess window before departing for the election: lawmakers will have only 16 legislative days between their impending return to Washington and their departure for the midterm elections, leaving a limited window to avert a government shutdown and accomplish other unfinished business . - [2026] Congress's energy in 2026 has been consumed by repeated funding crises rather than new tax legislation: cumulatively the government endured roughly 123 days of shutdown in the past 12 months across three separate lapses, crowding out bandwidth for a novel, massive tax-elimination bill. - [2025-07] OBBBA, the one major tax law actually enacted under Trump's second term, deliberately chose the narrow-deduction design over full exemption: it locks in the 2017 tax brackets for good, raises the standard deduction, and adds new breaks for tips, overtime, car loan interest, and seniors , confirming that when Congress had the chance to act on "no tax under $150k" rhetoric, it codified only capped, temporary carve-outs, not a bracket-wide zero rate. - [2026, current law] Under enacted law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act extends the existing federal income tax brackets beyond 2025... marginal tax rates ranging from 10% to 37% will continue to apply , meaning the status quo tax structure for incomes under $150,000 remains fully intact with no $0 bracket, and no subsequent bill has been introduced to change that baseline. - [2025, reference class] Outside experts judged the proposal technically unworkable on tariff-funding grounds even before the IEEPA ruling: tariff rates would have to skyrocket to levels "well over 60%" to replace lost income-tax revenue, a threshold nowhere close to being approached and now harder to reach after IEEPA tariffs were struck down and the Section 122 surcharge lapsed. - [2025-12] Even Trump's own rhetorical framing stays aspirational and multi-year rather than a concrete near-term action: "Over the next couple of years, I think we'll substantially be cutting—and maybe cutting out completely—income tax," Trump said , explicitly pushing any full elimination beyond the market's Jan 1, 2027 deadline. - [No formal bill found] Despite extensive searching, no House or Senate bill introduced in the 119th Congress (through Oct 2026) proposes a 0% federal income tax rate for filers under $150,000; the only "$150,000" references in current law are phase-out thresholds for narrow OBBBA deductions, not a zero-bracket, and no executive order text has been located that purports to waive income tax unilaterally (which would in any case face certain immediate constitutional/legal challenge, as presidents cannot unilaterally change tax rates set by statute). BOTTOM LINE: Every structural indicator — the compressed and recess-dominated post-midterm legislative calendar, the shutdown-consumed floor time, the CRFB's finding that the policy blows up the debt even under its own stated precondition (a balanced budget that remains unachieved and unaddressed), the collapse of the tariff-revenue funding mechanism, and Congress's demonstrated preference (via OBBBA) for narrow capped deductions over full exemption — points to continued inertia and a hard NO before the Jan 1, 2027 deadline. NOT FOUND: No bill text, executive order, or White House legislative proposal specifically establishing a 0% income-tax bracket under $150,000 has been located as introduced, scheduled, or scored by CBO/JCT as of October 2026; no statement from Treasury, OMB, or congressional leadership indicating intent to bring such a measure to a floor vote before year-end.