With the July 13th deadline has arrived, many in the firearms world are going to have to learn new procedures in order to get ATF tax stamp approval for their NFA weapons. Anyone who doesn’t have their application to purchase a tax stamp through their trust tax postmarked by July 13th 2016 will have to comply with the new rules. As we know, tax stamps have been necessary for certain weapons, such as machine guns, short barreled rifles and shotguns, suppressors, and other items that the government decided (in their infinite wisdom) needed special regulation in the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA). Before rule 41F, which goes into effect on July 13th, the NFA tax stamp could be acquired by a trust or legal entity, which would own the restricted weapons, without having to take many of the steps (such as CLEO approval, fingerprinting and photographing) that individuals had to take to own these weapons.
The new process is still a form driven event. The forms are available on the ATF website. The New ATF Forms
While the changes in the law that 41F makes means that the process of attaining an NFA item through a trust is no simpler than attaining one as an individual, the trust retains the added benefit of allowing more than one person to possess the item. Trusts that were set up before are “grandfathered in,” although any additional items placed into that trust in the future would have to comply with the updated rules.
As most of our members want to continue to use their trusts to gain that benefit of multiple people legally possessing the NFA item, we will focus our post on how to fill out these forms for a trust.
ATF FORM 1: TAX PAID APPLICATION TO MAKE AND REGISTER A FIREARM
1) Type of Application: Most applicants will check box “a” for tax paid. Tax payment must be included with the application in the form of credit or debit card authorization, check or money order, payable to BATFE. We suggest a money order.