Congress moves to eliminate $200 federal tax on machine gun transfers
H.R. 2552 — RIFLE Act · Filed by Ashley Hinson (R-IA) · 33 cosponsors · Introduced Apr 1, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill repeals the federal excise tax on transfers of certain firearms regulated under the National Firearms Act (NFA)—primarily machine guns, short-barreled rifles, and suppressors. Currently, transferring these weapons incurs a $200 tax under Section 5811 of the Internal Revenue Code. The bill eliminates that tax and makes conforming changes to related sections of tax law. A rule of construction clarifies that the repeal does not subject NFA firearms to Consumer Product Safety Commission oversight.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is the repeal of a specific federal excise tax on NFA firearm transfers. It is a straightforward tax-code amendment with no broader policy intent beyond that repeal.
What the text implies
- Repeal eliminates a $200-per-transfer revenue stream; cumulative federal revenue impact depends on transfer volume, which is not disclosed in the bill.
- The conforming amendments preserve NFA registration and approval procedures but remove the transfer tax; regulatory friction remains but financial cost does not.
- Rule of construction (Section 3) explicitly blocks CPSC jurisdiction over NFA firearms, preempting any future regulatory expansion in that direction.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill reduces a financial barrier to acquiring heavily regulated weapons (machine guns, short-barreled rifles, suppressors), which may be viewed as expanding access to constitutionally protected property or as removing a public-safety revenue mechanism. The $200 tax historically served dual purposes: revenue and a modest friction point in NFA transfers. Removing it lowers costs for those seeking to transfer these weapons but eliminates a small revenue stream and removes a procedural checkpoin
Who stands to gain
- individuals and dealers transferring NFA-regulated firearms
- secondary market for machine guns, short-barreled rifles, and suppressors
Named in the bill
Internal Revenue Service (IRS), National Firearms Act (NFA), Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Section 5811 of Internal Revenue Code, Chapter 53 of Internal Revenue Code
Where it stands
33 cosponsors: 33 Republicans.
- Apr 1, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Apr 1, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Ways and Means · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 4 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $1,419,548 in lobbying spend. A filing names 96 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Ashley Hinson, the sponsor, reported $957,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Rifle Association of America — $990,000 on 2 filings
- National Association for Gun Rights — $429,548 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 22, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,684 characters) on Sep 23, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,784 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 22, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-24.
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