Gardner v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
34 F.3d 985 · 1994
Citation profile
7 federal appellate · 4 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 18 later decisions — most recently December 2016
7 federal appellate · 4 district · 1 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 11 U.S.C. § 362 · 26 U.S.C. § 6321 (Federal Tax Lien Act of 1966) · 26 U.S.C. § 6322 · 28 U.S.C. § 2410
Relies on Salve Regina College v. Russell · Aquilino v. United States · Morgan v. Commissioner · United States v. National Bank of Commerce · United States v. Rodgers
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 18 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If any person liable to pay any tax neglects or refuses to pay the same after demand, the amount (including any interest, additional amount, addition to tax, or assessable penalty, together with any costs that may accrue in addition thereto) shall be a lien in favor of the United States upon all property and rights to property, whether real or personal belonging to such person.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he government’s rights can rise no higher than those of the taxpayer to whom the property belongs; for example, the lien for a partner’s unpaid income taxes attaches to his interest in the firm, not to the firm’s assets. In the same vein, the lien arising from the unpaid taxes of a person who purchased property under a conditional sale or chattel mortgage before the assessment was made attaches to the taxpayer’s equity and is inferior to the seller’s security interest. Moreover, the tax collector not only steps into the taxpayer’s shoes but must go barefoot if the shoes wear out; thus, a state judgment terminating the taxpayer’s rights to an asset also extinguishes the federal tax lien attached thereto.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Additionally, although federal law delineates the standard for determining when a federal tax lien attaches, [t]he threshold question in this case, as in all cases where the Federal Government asserts its tax lien, is whether and to what extent the taxpayer had “property” or “rights to property” to which the tax lien could attach. In answering that question, both federal and state courts must look to state law, for it has long been the rule that in the application of a federal revenue act, state law controls in determining the nature of the legal interest which the taxpayer had in the property ... sought to be reached by the statute.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.