Court Opinion

ID: 8778793
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 13:10:55.976139+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:02:43.619954
License: Public Domain

NOYES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). Concededly the state had the power to make the tax in question a lien on the corporation’s property and to give it priority over other liens. The only question is whether il has done so. The law provides:
“Such tax shall he a lien upon and bind all of the real and personal property of the corporation, joint stock company or association liable to pay the same from the time when it is payable until the same is paid in full.”
This provision expressly makes the tax a lien. It does not expressly give the lien priority; but that, in my opinion, necessarily results from the provision that it shall bind the property of the corporation “until the same is paid in full.” A lien cannot bind property until a tax is paid in full, if, without being paid at all, it can be wiped off by the foreclosure of a prior mortgage. The construction placed upon this provision by the opinion of the majority deprives it of all practical efficacy. It is wholly unnecessary to say that, as against subsequent lienors and general creditors, the lien shall remain until paid. And, assuming that the 20-year presumption of payment applies to taxes, the possibility that the Legislature had it in mind in making this enactment is very remote.
It must be borne in mind that we are not dealing with conventional liens, in which the parties cannot by any stipulations affect the rights of prior lienors. We are dealing with a demand of the government, which the government has the right to make a charge upon the property, and to which charge it may give priority. And in my opinion the provision in question was intended to accomplish that result, is appropriate for the accomplishment of that result, and must be erroneously limited in scope not to accomplish that result.
I think that the order should be reversed.