consolidating NFA items onto 1 trust?

[Dsking85]

Over the years, i've purchased NFA items on a few different trusts and have done some individual. I do realize that this wasn't the best way to go about things. My first trust name was extremely long and it made it a pain and an eyesore to get it engraved on my Form 1 items.

For my most recent form 1, i just went ahead and got an NFA trust made with a very short name. I'd like to go ahead and start the process of getting all of my NFA items onto my newest trust. I do realize that this is going to cost me $200 per item.

Has anyone gone about doing this before? My main goal for this is to simplify things for my trustees and to get everything set up for my wife and kids to be able to take over my NFA items if anything were to happen to me. Is this the easiest way to do that? Am I allowed to just cut and paste some of the trustee and beneficiary wording into my other trusts? Unsure what i'm legally allowed to do.

I figure someone else may have tried to do this before so any advice is appreciated!

 

[BigWaylon]

You already have the new trust set up, so what are you trying to cut & paste at this point?

Transferring from you as an individual, or from you as an RP of another entity, to the new trust is fairly straightforward. I’ve done it twice. You get to maintain possession, with no dealer involvement, since you’re the transferor and transferee.

 

[GymB]

I went the other way, a trust for each item. I see no benefit to consolidating them.

 

[Dsking85]

You already have the new trust set up, so what are you trying to cut & paste at this point?

Transferring from you as an individual, or from you as an RP of another entity, to the new trust is fairly straightforward. I’ve done it twice. You get to maintain possession, with no dealer involvement, since you’re the transferor and transferee.

I was mainly wondering if I could copy and paste the trustee and beneficiary info from the new trust onto the old one so my family could take possession of those without transferring to the new trust. The long trust name is already engraved on a few things so wouldn't be much benefit to transferring them if I could copy that info and make it legal for them.

Thanks!

 

[JRHorne]

I think you're asking 2 different things. I am not a legal expert, but I believe you could just start a new trust for future NFA items (with a shorter name) and make that new trust the responsible trust for your old trusts. As far as your family, with the RP provision, there is likely a way to amend them to add the family without having to "transfer" the item to another trust.

I would not pay the $200 per item before I talked with a lawyer about amending the original trust(s) to add the family members. Why do you want to add them? So they can possess and use the NFA items without you present right now?

 

[Dsking85]

I think you're asking 2 different things. I am not a legal expert, but I believe you could just start a new trust for future NFA items (with a shorter name) and make that new trust the responsible trust for your old trusts. As far as your family, with the RP provision, there is likely a way to amend them to add the family without having to "transfer" the item to another trust.

I would not pay the $200 per item before I talked with a lawyer about amending the original trust(s) to add the family members. Why do you want to add them? So they can possess and use the NFA items without you present right now?

possibly. I will look into making the new trusts responsible for the old trusts. I mainly want to make it so that if something happens to me my family won't have an uphill battle to take possession of my NFA items. They do not need to use them without me currently.

 

[BigWaylon]

The old trust(s) just need an amendment written that adds the family members as trustees. Assuming no new items are ever going to be added to that one, there’s no ATF involvement at all. You don’t want to just change the wording with a copy/paste.

The ones filed as an individual will transfer tax-free to whoever is the legal heir. You can fill out the Form 5 as much as possible ahead of time to make that easier on them.

You can also name the new trust as the heir, and also as the beneficiary for the old trust, if the end goal is to have everything under one trust for the next generation.


…and yes, it seems like you’re asking about a half-dozen different things at once. So keep going, and clarify for us which parts haven’t been answered yet.

 

[Dsking85]

The old trust(s) just need an amendment written that adds the family members as trustees. Assuming no new items are ever going to be added to that one, there’s no ATF involvement at all. You don’t want to just change the wording with a copy/paste.

The ones filed as an individual will transfer tax-free to whoever is the legal heir. You can fill out the Form 5 as much as possible ahead of time to make that easier on them.

You can also name the new trust as the heir, and also as the beneficiary for the old trust, if the end goal is to have everything under one trust for the next generation.


…and yes, it seems like you’re asking about a half-dozen different things at once. So keep going, and clarify for us which parts haven’t been answered yet.

no that clarifies it very well. May main question was how to make it stress free for my family to take possession and this gives me some good things to research. Thanks!

 

[BigWaylon]

no that clarifies it very well. May main question was how to make it stress free for my family to take possession and this gives me some good things to research. Thanks!

A lot of people don’t understand, mainly due to “gun trust lawyers” and their scare tactics, that an NFA item transfers tax free to the legal heir. Doesn’t matter if it’s registered to an individual, trust, corp, etc.

The one item per trust method keeps it really simple and flexible. But having everything under one roof might be simpler to whoever has to deal with it later, even if it means less flexibility.