Court Opinion

ID: 9532164
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:18:44.729538+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:41.413703
License: Public Domain

WOLFE, Chief Justice.
This appeal concerns the priority of Federal and State tax liens. The proceedings were originally instituted when Citizens Coal Company, a creditor of Capitol Cleaners and *287Dyers, Inc., caused a receiver to be appointed for Capitol. The receiver determined from an audit of Capitol’s books that the business had operated at a loss for several years, and the physical assets and good will of said corporation were sold as a going concern to the highest bidder. Proper notice was given to all creditors to present their claims in writing to the receiver. Pursuant thereto, claims were filed by Appellant, United States of America for delinquent income, withholding and unemployment taxes, and respondent, County Treasurer of Salt Lake County, filed claim for unpaid personal property taxes. After deducting the expenses of the receivership and the said sale, the trial court established the following priorities:
(1) United States of America for delinquent taxes which had been assessed and which had been recorded in the office of the Salt Lake County Recorder prior to the appointment of the receiver — $4,625.56.
(2) County Treasurer of Salt Lake County for personal property taxes for 1949 and 1950 — $836.68.
(3) United States of America for delinquent taxes which had been assessed prior to the receiver’s appointment, but no Notice of Tax Lien had been recorded in the office of the County Recorder concerning these assessments —$1,705.22.
The appellant contends that the various taxes assessed by the Collector of Internal Revenue against Capitol became liens against the property of the taxpayer on the respective dates on which the assessment lists were received in the office of the Collector, and that it was not necessary that notice of such liens be filed in the office of the County Recorder to give such liens a priority over county taxes.
Section 3670 of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U. S. C. A. allows a lien for Federal taxes:
“If any person liable to pay any tax neglects or refuses to pay the same after demand, the amount * * * shall he a lien in favor of *288the United States upon all property and rights to property, whether real or personal, belonging to such person.”
Section 3671 I. R. C. 26 U. S. C. A. provides:
“Unless another date is specifically fixed by law, the lien shall arise at the time the assessment list was received by the collector # * 7>
The wording of Sections 3670 and 3671, supra, makes it clear that the lien attaches as of the date the assessment list is received in the Collector’s office. It has been uniformly so held by the courts. Citizens State Bank of Barstow, Texas v. Vidal, 10 Cir., 114 F. 2d 380; Filipowicz v. Rothensies, D. C., 43 F. Supp. 619; United States v. Record Publishing Co., D. C., 60 F. Supp. 194.
However, Section 3672, I. R. C. 26 U. S. C. A. specifies:
“Such lien shall not be valid as against any mortgagee, pledgee, purchaser, or judgment creditor until notice thereof has been filed by the collector — (1) In accordance with the law of the State * * * in which the property subject to the lien is situated * *
Respondent maintains that it is a judgment creditor of the taxpayer under the Utah statutes. Section 80-10-1 of the Utah Code Annotated 1943, provides:
“Every tax has the effect of a judgment against the person, and every lien created by this title has the force and effect of an execution duly levied against all personal property of the delinquent. The judgment is not satisfied nor the lien removed until the taxes are paid or the property sold for the payment thereof.” (Italics added.)
Section 80-10-2, states that:
“Every tax upon personal property is a lien upon the real property of the owner thereof, from and after 12 o’clock m. of the 1st day in January of each year.”
Appellant contends that the County had no lien upon the personal property of Capitol because Sections 80-10-1 & 2, U. C. A. 1943, only provide for a lien upon real property. *289Taylor Motor Car Co. v. Salt Lake County, 74 Utah 594, 281 P. 49. In the instant case Capitol Cleaners & Dyers, Inc. was a lessee of its premises, so there was no real property to which the lien could attach, but want of ownership of real property does not prevent a creditor from becoming a judgment creditor.
Whether our statutory provision that, “Every tax has the effect of a judgment,” qualifies the County as a judgment creditor within the meaning of that word as used in Section 3672 of the Internal Revenue Code is a Federal question. United States v. Security Trust & Savings Bank, 1950, 340 U. S. 47, 71 S. Ct. 111, 113. In that case a creditor procured an attachment upon real estate, but before he obtained and recorded the judgment, the United States filed notice of federal tax liens. The Supreme Court held that the federal tax liens were superior to the prior attachment lien because the Supreme Court of California had described the attachment lien under its Code of Civil Procedure as a contingent inchoate lien. The United States Supreme Court stated that,
“The effect of a lien in relation to a provision of federal law for the collection of debts owing the United States is always a federal question. * * * [But] if the state court itself describes the lien as inchoate, this classification is ‘practically conclusive.’ ”
In Crystal Car Line v. State Tax Commission, 110 Utah 426, 174 P. 2d 984, 991, we declared that the provision of Section 80-10-1, U. C. A. 1943, which provides that every tax has the effect of a judgment,
“indicated that every tax should be collected by the same means, in the same manner and within the same time as a judgment, unless otherwise expressly provided.”
Chapter 10 of Title 80 provides for collection of taxes against personal property, by a summary proceeding through seizure and sale of the personal property of the *290delinquent taxpayer. Mr. Justice Wolfe in his concurring opinion states:
“A tax obligation which is given the effect of a judgment is not a judgment as that term is used. It cannot be sued on in another state. The effect of a judgment is that it is a final determination of amount and nature of the obligation imposed and that it is a lien against the judgment debtor’s real estate in the county where docketed.”
We believe the language, “every tax has the effect of a judgment”, describes the liability of the taxpayer and the method of procedure in collecting the tax rather than characterizes the County as a judgment creditor. In United States v. Security Trust and Savings Bank, supra, the attaching creditor did not become a judgment creditor until the court pronounced judgment. In his concurring opinion, Mr. Justice Jackson reviews the history of Sections 3670-3672, 26 U. S. C. A. and points out how mortgagers, purchasers, judgment creditors and pledgees were excepted from the priority of assessed but unrecorded federal tax liens. He states
“The history of this tax lien statute indicates that only a judgment creditor in the conventional sense is protected.”
Accordingly, we hold that the state statute does not elevate the County to the preferred position of a judgment creditor whose lien is superior to unrecorded federal tax liens. The case is reversed with directions to accord the United States of America priority in payment of its tax lien in the total sum of $6,330.78 instead of $4,625.56. Under the above principle, appellant is not entitled to priority concerning the sum of $645.72 which was assessed after the County Treasurer seized the property of Capitol Cleaners & Dyers, Inc. for sale on its tax claim. Costs awarded to appellant.
LATIMER, McDONOUGH and CROCKETT, JJ., concur.