IRS Tax Lien Attached to Insurance Settlement Payments.

Often it is believed that an IRS tax lien can only attach to real estate or bank accounts.  This case, however, points out that an IRS tax lien can attach to other property that the taxpayer owns or receives.  The decedent owned a building that was damaged in a fire.  An insurance company paid $50,000 in insurance proceeds.  A bank held a perfected first-priority lien over judgment liens and tax liens and was awarded over $24,000 in accordance with the lien.  The IRS sought entitlement to the remaining funds in accordance with its tax lien covering over $300,000 in unpaid federal income tax that the decedent owed from prior tax years.  The court determined that the IRS lien priority was based on first-in-time, first-in-right analysis because only competing lienholder was state revenue department which didn't implicate I.R.C. Sec. 6323(f) (state revenue department was not a purchaser, judgment lien holder or holder of security interest).  Owners Insurance Company v. McDaniel, et al., No. 2:13-dcv-882-JHH, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 48934 (N.D. Ala. Apr. 9, 2014).