How will the ATF make the Tax Stamp $0? Which ATF Form will be used?
President Donald Trump, singed the OBBB, "One Big, Beautiful [Suppressor] Bill", into law on July 4th, 2025. That law contains SEC. 70436. REDUCTION OF TRANSFER AND MANUFACTURING TAXES FOR CERTAIN DEVICES which reduces the excise tax to make an NFA firearm and transfer an NFA firearm to $0 instead of the current $200.
To date, there is no proposed timeline or any information paperwork wise how this will look come January 1, 2026. We know that the ATF 5320.1 Application to Make and Register a Firearm and ATF 5320.5 Application for Tax Exempt Transfer and Registration of Firearm both have options on the application for tax exempt transfers. Which we are assuming the $0 tax stamp will be labeled. Since there is no tax to be levied for the making or transferring of NFA firearms, it would make sense for the tax-exempt option to be used on the ATF 5320.1 - ATF Form 1 and the ATF 5320.5 - ATF Form 5. But how will that look on the ATF 5320.4 - ATF Form 4?
The ATF 5320.4 Application for Tax Paid Transfer and Registration of Firearm, indicates that the tax is being paid, with the current options being $5 for AOW and $200 for all other NFA firearms. Since the ATF Form 4 is a "Tax Paid Transfer", will the ATF Form 4 be receiving updates to reflect the new January 1, 2026 $0 tax stamp update? Or which is more plausible, will the ATF Form 5 be used instead of the ATF Form 4 after January 1, 2026 for the tax-exempt transfer? That brings up another question, if that were to be the case, then what happens to the ATF Form 4? According to the SEC. 70436. REDUCTION OF TRANSFER AND MANUFACTURING TAXES FOR CERTAIN DEVICE of the OBBB, there will still be the need for the ATF Form 4 if you are transferring machine guns or destructive devices (DD's) from one legal entity to another.