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I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. Tech stocks shot upward yesterday after the White House gave at least a temporary reprieve from the highest tariffs on imported smartphones and other consumer electronics. Then later yesterday, President Trump indicated he might do the same on tariffs for cars, trucks and auto parts. At the same time, the administration is signaling higher tariffs on imported pharmaceuticals and semiconductor chips. Marketplace's Nova Safo has an update.

The COVID pandemic exposed weaknesses in the global supply chains for drugs and computer chips. To rectify that, the Biden administration opted for incentives, more carrot than stick.

The Bipartisan Chips Act spurred more semiconductor plant investments in the U.S. The administration also took steps to boost drug manufacturing. President Trump is taking the stick approach. He previously indicated that pharmaceuticals and computer chips may be next in line for tariffs, and the Commerce Department took a step in that direction yesterday. It posted notices on the Federal Register that it is launching investigations into those imports and their impacts on national security.

But imposing additional taxes on drug and chip imports could put further pressure on consumer prices. Right now, the average effective tariff rate in the U.S. is the highest since 1903 at 27%, according to the Yale Budget Lab. The group calculates the average cost is already $4,700 a year for each American household.

I'm Nova Safo for Marketplace. Something generally not imported, water service to your home. But many water bills are way up. A new report from Bank of America Institute says in the past year, the average water bill has risen at nearly twice the rate of inflation, up more than 7 percent. Marketplace's Kaylee Wells has that.

There are two big causes. Economist Taylor Boley with the Bank of America Institute says the first is climate. Drought conditions were particularly high in the third quarter of 2024.

And the second is what Eric Olson with the Natural Resources Defense Council calls ancient infrastructure. A lot of our water treatment systems date back to the early 1900s. Both of those problems hit the Midwest in 2024. It's the only region that's seen above-average water bill increases in both of the past two years.

Olson says the only solution is major investment in the country's old water systems. And the good news is the U.S. has done that in the last few years. There was this bipartisan infrastructure law that invested like over $30 billion in our water infrastructure. But that expires next year in 2026. And he says without more investment, lower income and rural communities that can't afford upgrades won't be able to provide clean water. I'm Kaylee Wells for Marketplace. ♪

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The deadline for filing taxes for 2024 is tonight, but you can file for an extension. And for some, the extension is automatic this year. Nina Olson is executive director of the Nonprofit Center for Taxpayer Rights, who has long experience with the National Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent outfit within the IRS. Welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. Awesome.

On this matter of extensions, there's an automatic extension for people who've been through official disasters, of which there have been many. For instance, the Southern California wildfires. People don't have to file, I think, until October, right?

Well, so this is something that, you know, Congress has created the authorization for the IRS when there's a presidentially declared disaster to extend all sorts of filing dates. You know, the deadline for one disaster may be different for another depending on when they concern. So the best thing to do is check with the IRS. Now, Nina, you follow the following very closely. There have been budget cuts and hiring freezes affecting the Internal Revenue Service, which

Do you think you run into the effects of that if you call in with a question these days? There are many people who file extensions. About 20 percent of the taxpayers at this point file extensions until October 15th. And others, their refunds are held up in processing because maybe there's been an identity theft case.

So there are two returns in the system. And if those employees who are handling the phones, handling the correspondence, when you send in something saying, I don't owe this, if there's no one there to look at it, you know, you're going back to pandemic levels of taxpayer service, which was virtually non-existent. Now, you strike me as a person who probably did her 2024 tax return with

Within five minutes of you getting your W-2 form statement of your income, is that what you did? Not completely five minutes, but fairly shortly after. And actually, it went through smoothly and I got a refund. But for lots of people, the IRS has a lot of filters on.

and models to identify questionable refunds because it's always, in its opinion, better to stop the refund from going out than trying to claw back an incorrect refund. Yeah, I mean, I'm hearing from you a straightforward point, which is some people may be listening to news of cutbacks at the IRS saying, oh,

Less of a chance of getting audited, but the flip side is less of a chance of perhaps getting a refund that's due. People are really harmed if they can't get their refunds. For many refunds, particularly low-income taxpayers, the refund's about 25 percent of their annual income.

And I think, you know, that's where the myth of, you know, fewer auditors and I don't have to worry about it. It's like that's ignoring the fact that so much of what the IRS does on the compliance side and the enforcement side is automated. And it's only after the automated action that you reach out and get a live human being looking at this. Fascinating.

Fascinating. Nina Olson, executive director of the Nonprofit Center for Taxpayer Rights. Thank you very much. You're welcome. And my tip is, if you're running around trying to find that 1099 for the interest you earned on that paltry savings account, the Latin words de minimis, maybe your friend, too low to matter, is an actual thing. In Los Angeles, I'm David Brancaccio. It's the Marketplace Morning Report from APM American Public Media.

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