Might be buried in other threads. Not sure.
As the talk of eliminating the NFA resurfaces, I was curious as to what it brings in a year in revenue.

We can agree that suppressor sales/interest has increased in the last 5 years.

My thought is if it is substantial amount, it won't be going away anytime soon.

You forget the government just prints money! Those Tax Stamp dollars aren't even a rounding error. The .gov could care less about the money...Seriously!

That said, it would seem possible that the newly conceived D.O.G.E. 'might' consider this valued revenue, except for the fact that it's highly probable that the costs associated with processing all the Tax Stamps probably exceeds the revenue anyway, such that it would be better to just eliminate the entire NFA Branch!
Perhaps Elon and Vivek should take a look at this...Just sayin'

This question seems to often come up in hand with folks who also think the ATF gets to keep what they earn in tax stamps. They could give flip about what tax stamps cost or what tax revenue they generate. It's not even a drop in a reservoir.

ATF's fiscal year budget for 2022 was 1.2 billion.



If we go off the numbers in that video, that's approximately $202m in "tax revenue" generated in the last two years just off suppressors alone. Let' just be silly and say it's twice that amount in SBR's and MG's and put the total number somewhere around $800m just to have an amount to throw around. That still doesn't cover one year's budget. $700m total "tax revenue" off suppressors in the last four years is still half of a fiscal year's budget for the ATF, and that's with more suppressor bought in the last six months than the entire prior 83 years of the existence of the NFA.

No DOGE is going to find that the ATF is efficient because they're generating a fraction of their yearly budget, and that, with record-smashing numbers.

It is NOT about the money, and it never has been. It's only ever been intended as a barrier to the average citizen obtaining and owning these arms and accessories because they scare politicians. As inflation made it less of a barrier, the process became the barrier. They could only keep working off paper forms for so long, so they instituted E-forms, but did it in the least efficient way they could, and that, they could no longer drag their feet on, knowing that any kind of efficiency in the process would open the floodgates to ownership and thus, lead to a questioning of their budget. Bureaus live to justify their budget first and foremost. The recent numbers the past few years begs the question the ATF desperately does not want to face, and that's:

In FY 2023 there were 1,069,000+ NFA applications. I’d posit that most were $200 tax stamps. Some were $5 AOW stamps. I’d bet that with efile being the huge success and background check wait times measured in hours Vs months now, FY 2024 will be even more. $200mm+ in stamp fee income alone is not insignificant.

But elsewhere I found data about “3.5MM NFA firearms processed in 2023”. I assume that means all non NFA restricted guns sold through FFL including private party sales new sales NFA (SBR, SBS, AOW, full auto and suppressors form 1 and 4)


I’d prefer it was $0 in taxes collected and the NFA was repealed.

quote:

Originally posted by ElToro:
$200mm+ in stamp fee income alone is not insignificant.

Compared to the agency responsible for that tax income having a $1.2 billion budget per year, I would say it is. The federal government collected $4.47 trillion in revenue during the 2023 fiscal year. $200 million dollars is 0.00447% of that. Not even one one-hundredth of a percent of all federal revenue in a year. It's pure math. I don't even math and I can look at those numbers and say "yeah, it ain't about the money."

My father was DOJ for half his career. I know just enough about how federal bureaucrats function to know that the ONLY thing those people care about is doing just enough to keep that big federal eagle shitting paychecks on their desk every two weeks.

quote:

Originally posted by ElToro:
I’d prefer it was $0 in taxes collected and the NFA was repealed.

100% agreed.

That $200 today is like $9 bucks back in 1934. I'd rather the ATF had an express 48hour priority service that cost an extra $50 or whatever and you could have some assurance when you get the darn thing back.

quote:

Originally posted by hrcjon:
That $200 today is like $9 bucks back in 1934. I'd rather the ATF had an express 48hour priority service that cost an extra $50 or whatever and you could have some assurance when you get the darn thing back.

I wouldn't rock the boat on these things...hopefully NFA stays a relatively well kept secret amongst the majority of the population. It kinda sucks to pay $200 on a SBR or suppressor transfer, but honestly the $200 for a transferrable MG is almost a rounding error considering how much they cost now.

It fell flat last time, but maybe Trump can get the "hearing protection act" going again ... removing suppressors from the registry would be great, but the CEO being shot with a suppressed handgun may de-rail that dream

I'd have to say I disagree with them not caring what it brings in. You don't think like them. I say this based on working for the state for 30+ years, and I'm assuming the federal government is like the state, only worse.

What I've seen is they're all about saving/making money, even if it takes a fortune to do so. Spending tens of thousands to save hundreds. Even if it costs more than $200 to collect the $200, they care about it deeply.

quote:

Originally posted by cas:
You don't think like them. I say this based on working for the state for 30+ years[...]

Ok.