How to Withdraw your eForm 1 Application in the Pending Research Phase

If you have applied for a tax stamp using the ATF's eForm website for your eForm 1 tax stamp application, your application might be in the pending research phase.  As of writing this blog article, December 30, 2020, the pending research phase is currently at 5 weeks.  This means that, you will be waiting 5 weeks after you submit your eForm 1 application before you receive your cover sheet from the ATF.  The cover sheet is used to submit your fingerprint cards to the ATF and is specific to application that you submitted.  The pending research phase is triggered by choosing, "My item description is not in the list, create new item", (see below).  If you want to withdraw your application that is pending research and choose an already researched item, you can do that.  However, there is a caveat. You can't withdraw an eForm 1 tax stamp application until your application has been issued a control number.  If you view the cover letter that is sent to you when you are in the pending research phase or view your submitted application on the ATF eForm's website, you will see that there is no control number.  The control number that is needed to withdraw your ATF eForm 1 application is not issued until your tax stamp application has cleared the pending research phase.  In summation, you can't withdraw your eForm 1 application until your pending research phase has cleared that phase.  The pending research phase is currently, at the time of writing, 5 weeks.  This means, you won't be able to withdraw your application and receive the $200 refund from the ATF for 5 weeks or more.  While your current pending research application is in the pending research phase, you can however, apply for a new tax stamp for an already researched item.  The ATF will be able to cancel and refund your previous application after it has cleared the pending research phase, but the $200 payment will be tied up during that timeframe. 

Example of "My item description is not in the list, create new item"