NFA trusts or what other options?

I would like to hear what others have done concerning their NFA firearms and suppressors. Most do a trust, but I really don't have anyone to leave them too.

In short, we currently have no family within the US. I do hope my niece and her husband will win the Green Card Lottery this May but as of now, I really don't have anyone to leave NFA articles too so,,,

I could leave them to my wife, who became a US citizen a few years ago but that isn't really optimum either since her English isn't great, improving every day, but government legal mumbo-jumbo is way beyond her at this point.

I suppose I could name a friend in the Trust, let him sell them, take a percentage, give the remaining money to my wife...sounds like it is asking too much of someone...

So, it there any other options other than Trust or let the government take them? Ideas? Recommendations?

 

A NFA Trust does make it easier to pass along NFA items, but it isn't necessary to do so. They may be useful in some states that have banned NFA items after purchase, however, to bypass those laws when passed down. One thing a NFA trust does in this situation is to remove any ambiguity about ownership.

Each trust has a primary manager/decision maker called the SETLOR, that would be you. A TRUSTEE is a person added to the trust by the SETLOR. The SETLOR can also remove a TRUSTEE. In addition the SETLOR maintains all documentation such as the item inventory and is usually the person who adds an item, but any TRUSTEE can add an item as well.

One thing they are handy for is that they allow for anyone who is a trustee to have access and use the NFA item without you being present. For example, a spouse, child, or trusted friend that wants to borrow a silencer for the range or to take hunting is free to do so.

Keep in mind that transferring each item already in your personal possession requires an additional tax stamp. That's why I set up my trust before my first NFA purchase to avoid two stamps per item.

Each trustee that gets added to the trust also has to get a tax stamp any time an item gets added. You minimize this my adding all items first, then when the trustee gets added they only need one stamp regardless of how many items are already there.

As for cost and simplicity I went with Silencer Shop to get it set up. They have a streamlined online process that will set you up quickly and likely less expensively than if you use a lawyer. IIRC it was $100 total, (now $130). They also have a "single shot" trust that only allows one item, but multiple trustees for sharing. I don't really see any use for these if you have or intend to purchase more than one NFA item.

Example: I have 4 silencers and 2 SBR's in my trust. Assume my wife and her two children were added to the trust before any items were purchased. Total costs for tax stamps /background checks is $4,800.00 ($200 x 6 items x 4 members).

Same scenario, except that all items are added before any trustees are added: Cost for adding each item is $1.200.00 and then adding the 3 trustees for $600.00 for a total of $1,800.00. If you later add an item each has to pony up $200.00 for a total of $800.00, so buy everything first if you can.

Another use for an NFA trust is to get around state laws or policies that otherwise prevent youn a firearm b from transferring an item to a loved one or trusted person. For example, in Oregon a person who has had their gun rights revoked but then later restored may be legally allowed to owy law, but Oregon will ALWAYS deny their NICS background check. When yo inquire they will blame NICS and when you checks with NICS they will say it's on Oregon.

If you add the same person to a trust the background check the state (Oregon) has no input to (illegally) prevent the background check from coming back clean and preventing them from joining the trust. If they get bothered later by the State Police a NFA tax stamp post restored rights trumps State tomfoolery.

I have followed the guides from National Gun Trusts and they are very detailed and step by step. 2023 instructions are current.
https://www.youtube.com/@NationalGunTrusts

Silencer Shop Gun Trusts: https://www.silencershop.com/services/gun-trusts.html

 

I got nothing to add to what 3M posted, other then for you starting out in the NFA world, a Trust is the best choice you have, and had I known before my first, I absolutely would have done it! As it stands now, I have a Trust with everything included so that not only my Wife, but two Sons, and even their children have access to, and ultimately an enharitence they can count on for the future, so that even if a state or several go full semi auto retard against the 2nd, the Tax Stamps and Trust Trump's all! What's better, even if Congress strikes the NFA entirely, the stamps and trust do not go away, nore does ownership, so it paints the gooberment in a corner that the courts have not been able to break, and likely will not!
Finally, a trust settles any questions in the future, as it declares what IS and what ISN'T owned and included, so there can be no disputes leveled against it, no claims against it, even by a state or the feds!

Lastly, were the NFA to go away, like SCOTUS actually rules it unconstitutional, the stamps and trust still guarantee ownership and enharitence, and prevents states from acting against them, like Washington State claiming no ownership of NFA items, the trust bypasses their laws, and while they can certainly challenge the fed law, they most certainly will loose any case they bring!
Ask me how I know!

 

Adding as a separate post because it doesn't actually apply to the O.P. BUT,...........

An NFA stamped item, or group of items do offer their own unique lawful exceptions and protections, making some Stamps worth having, so, something like a common double stamp SBR + Suppressor on an unserialized receiver are automatically protected MORE then your normal Rifle/Carbine or Pistol/Handgun, in that the courts MUST treat them differently, especially when taken as evidence, and especially if your entire collection were to be seized, having a single NFA item protects your entire collection from anything the court or the party holding your items in evidence, may do to test, use, abuse, or even sell or destroy, a BIG TIME NO-NO for them and the court, people have gone to jail and done serious time for mishandling abusing destroying or selling items taken that included an NFA stamp item(s), and courts have been sanctioned and justices disbarred and even arrested for allowing any mishandling of evidence! Boy howdy you wanna see lefties absolutely melt like sno-flakes, wait till they have to cough up 60K+ for an M-16 A2 pre-ban off the registry Plus a known name brand suppressor, and then hand it over to you after the case against you gets dropped and your found innocent, even worse when the rest of your collection suffered abuses and has to be replaced with EXACT copies of the exact same make and model, talk about epic melt down, and Yes, I have seen it happen with my own eyes, It warmed my heart and brought an ear to ear grin when the Judge was forced to order full replacement,, and the prosecutor went ballistic after realizing he was on the hook for the entire thing, especially as there were several one of a kind, irreplaceable items that you cannot just go out and source, and the court cannot just offer up a case settlement, NOPE, they MUST, no matter the cost, replace anything/everything with the exact same as what was damaged/destroyed, one single spec of rust is enough to declare something ruined, like an Original first model Colt Exhibition 1873 New Army that was on the original commission from Sam Colt hisself, sold through Graf and Son of New York, that pistol was 1 of 1 hand made and engraved and all that, and absolutely irreplaceable, and the court had to go and find one from a collector, pay through the nose for it, and then hand it over with a smile and a genuine sorry for the trouble!

 

@3M-TA3 and @Ura-Ki Thank both of you very much for the taking the time and effort and give a detailed explanation. Obviously, I would have walked into the Trust nonsense and ending up paying twice as much as necessary by simply thinking it would be the same after one procures the firearms. Thank you both very much! I've kept these comments in my files for future reference. Thanks!

 

Sounds like it might make sense to SBR most rifles even if you never shorten the barrel to get better protection. I have heard several complaints on gun forums where PD's never get around to returning them and many where a particularly nice firearm somehow becomes the property of one of the officers. NFA items would squash that all to hell and be worth the $200 Tax Stamp "insurance" for anything special.

 

Great answers, guys, you’ve pretty much covered it all! I was unaware that trustees have to pay for a tax stamp, I wonder if this was overlooked on mine?

Also, I believe any firearm can be added to the trust. I am in the process of doing this now. This could be useful in case a state ever passes a law that firearms can’t be passed down from generation to generation.

 

This is the trap, you need a Stamp for each item, even though you have the trust and only wish to add it in, nope, only after you acquire a stamp for it can it then be added to the trust! And as 3M pointed out, each trustee must have a stamp, ideally after you got all your stamps but before you established your trust, so each trustee only needs ONE stamp as part of the group! After you pass on, the trust covers the inheritance, BUT if it gets divided up, each trustee must then add a stamp for each item they get! Kinda confusing, but that's how it works, and it insures everyone is covered and doesn't run afowel of the law! Your Trust attorney will be a great big help getting that all set up, and managed once your gone!

 

I'd be interested in finding out how that works - is it just a 4473 to the trust or if other things need to happen?

 

@Ura-Ki "...BUT if it gets divided up, each trustee must then add a stamp for each item they get!"

Wait. Are you saying, after I die, each trustee has to pay again for a stamp for each item they take if the firearms are divided? Am I hearing that correctly? That the firearms must remain in a group to be considered in the trust?
Question: must the firearms in the Trust be stored together at the same location or can they be distributed across the family/friends who are in the Trust but at different locations?

So, if they divide the firearms, basically breaking the group of firearms, which is considered to be breaking the Trust, then each individual starts from scratch, paying for a stamp for each firearm that they received, yes?

 

That's if the item is removed from the trust thus the $200 stamp for the transfer. It would be the same issue if the NFA item was not in a trust - it still needs to be transferred.

If everybody wants to share the items they can be left in the trust, all that needs to be done is to change who among them becomes the SETTLOR. Had my father had NFA items in a trust my brothers and I would have been happy to share them. Other situations may be different depending the parties involved.

 

Paw, Is that you Paw?

 

But, what about the location of the items? The trust is left to you and your brothers, but do they all have to be co-located in one spot, one location or can they be spread between the brothers?

 

"Got the Gold Right here Paw." The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976),

I'm overdue to watch it. Thanks for reminding me! Now, "Are you gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?"

 

Any trustee can be in possession of any item. It would be smart to annotate in the inventory the location of each. In addition NFA paperwork has to be filed for a change of location as per any NFA item.

 

"...NFA paperwork has to be filed for a change of location as per any NFA item."

It truly amazes me, that the government thinks all this paperwork makes society one teeny-tiny bit safer. I suggest they know it does not. However, what it does do is make people like me to not want to mess with NFA items...which I believe is the true purpose of its cost and complexity.

 

You have hit the nail on the head. It was never about making The People safer. The NFA was to prevent The People from owning them to begin with. In 1938 when the NFA was passed that $200 tax stamp would be about $4,800 today's money.

The roots of the NFA was not crime. If was about our Legislative and Executives shitting themselves in fear after the 1932 Bonus Army protest. WW1 vets were promised a bonus and marched on the Capitol demanding that those bonus certificates be redeemed. Remember, this was deep in the Great Depression and most of them were out of work, broke, and had families to feed. Our fearless politicians didn't want to deal with a large group of pissed off desperate combat trained vets coming after them so the NFA was created to make sure machine guns and other devices would not get in their hands. Their wealthy supporters, however, could still afford the Tax Stamps if things got out of control;

The Bonus Army not only gave us the NFA, it was during an election year and was the tipping point that got Stalin's buddy FDR elected to his first term. FDR's shitty policies drug out the depression until it was ended by the need for war items by WW2. We have been living in the Military Industrial Complex since then.

Bonus Army - Wikipedia

 

LOts of people misunderstand the NFA, and just how bad it could have been had SCOTUS not stepped in and told them it was unconstitutional, so that's where the "Tax" came into effect. Basically, the Gooberment wanted an outright ban of all their wet dream arms and stuff, scotus said NOPE, and some asshole came up with the Tax as a substitute, basically banning things as the tax was far above the cost of arms at the time, and scotus said OK, as long as there is no outright ban, so they also created the registry to keep track of who bought what and when, so they could track and potentially seize things if they ever felt the need! The origional list of banned arms included pistols, and THAT was a major sticking point, most of Congress refused to allow pistols being banned, so they had to tweak the bill quite a bit to get the NFA enacted and to clear SCOTUS! We were betrayed not only by congress but the SCOTUS as well! Also, the original authority was Dept of Treasury ( Because of the tax, but it had to change a few times before the ATF was formed and had Firearms added to it! It was all a big scam to disarm the people by hook or by crook, and they got away with it ONLY because of the TAX and not an outright BAN!