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Home > Journals > Michigan Law Review > MLR > Volume 45 > Issue 5 (1947)

 

Abstract

When decedent died in 1940, his personal estate was consumed by the widow's exemption and expenses of administration, leaving only a one-sixth interest in certain real estate formerly owned by his deceased father. Proceedings to partition this property resulted in a sum of $2,306.17 payable to decedent's widow, subject to the payment of his debts. The executors of one Davidson who had obtained a $24,588.00 judgment against decedent in 1933 claimed the entire fund as did the United States under tax liens entered in 1940 and 1941 of $2,202.89 and $8,904.67. The government based its claim on section 3466 of the Revised Statutes which provides that whenever any estate of a deceased debtor is insufficient to pay the debts, the amount due the United States shall be first satisfied. Section 3670 of the Internal Revenue Code makes the amount of the tax a lien on all a taxpayer's property when he refuses or neglects to pay the tax after demand has been made, however the judgment creditor claimed a prior lien under section 3672 of the code 8 which provides that the lien of the United States in such a case should not be valid against any judgment creditor until notice had been filed. Held, the judgment creditor is entitled to the fund. The court, pointing out that Congress had power to grant priority over federal liens to judgment lien creditors and to provide that first in lien should be first in right, reasoned that section 3672 must be construed with section 3466 and shows an intent on the part of Congress to modify the broad language of that section. The court regarded the judgment lien as sufficiently perfected and specific to defeat the government's claim. In re Meyer's Estate, 159 Pa. Super. 296, 48 A. ( 2d) 210 ( 1946).

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