United States v. Craft

This case raises the question whether a tenant by the entirety possesses “property” or “rights to property” to which a federal tax lien may attach. 26 U. S. C. §6321. Relying on the state law fiction that a tenant by the entirety has no separate interest in entireties property, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that such property is exempt from the tax lien. We conclude that, despite the fiction, each tenant possesses individual rights in the estate sufficient to constitute “property” or “rights to property” for the purposes of the lien, and reverse the judgment of…