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/* The US Supreme Court has a tendency to take at least one case
from many categories each term. Tax liens is one of the them. The
1993 tax lien case follows. Tax liens befuddle even Judges. Words
like "choateness" (the opposite of INCHOATE) are coined.
Nevertheless the priority of such liens is an important point,
and this case adds further to one of the more complicated points
in the legal field. Erisa or anti-trust anyone?  */

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be
released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the
time the opinion is issued.  The syllabus constitutes no part of
the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of
Decisions for the convenience of the reader.  See United States
v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

UNITED STATES by and through INTERNAL
REVENUE SERVICE v. McDERMOTT et al.

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the tenth circuit

No. 91-1229.  Argued December 7, 1992-Decided March 24, 1993

The United States' federal tax lien on the respondent McDermotts'
property applied to after-acquired property, Glass City Bank v.
United States, 326 U. S. 265, but could "not be valid as against
any  . . . judgment lien creditor until notice thereof . . . has
been filed," 26 U.S.C. 6323(a).  Before that lien was filed with
the Salt Lake County Clerk, a bank docketed a state-court
judgment it had won against the McDermotts, thereby creating a
state-law judgment lien on all of their existing or
after-acquired real property in the county.  After both liens
were filed, the McDermotts acquired certain real property in the
county and brought this interpleader action.  The District Court
awarded priority in that property to the bank's lien.  The Court
of Appeals affirmed.

Held:  A federal tax lien filed before a delinquent taxpayer
acquires real property must be given priority in that property
over a private creditor's previously filed judgment lien.
Priority for purposes of federal law is governed by the
common-law principle that "`the first in time is the first in
right."' United States v. New Britain, 347 U. S.  81, 85.  A
state lien that competes with a federal lien is deemed to be in
existence for "first in time" purposes only when it has been
"perfected" in the sense that, inter alia, "the property subject
to the lien [is] established." Id., at 84.  Because the bank's
judgment lien did not actually attach to the property at issue
until the McDermotts acquired rights in that property, which
occurred after the United States filed its tax lien, the bank's
lien was not perfected before the federal filing.  See id., at

84-86.  United States v. Vermont, 377 U. S.  251, distinguished.
It is irrelevant that the federal lien similarly did not attach
and become perfected until the McDermotts acquired the property,
since 6323(c)(1) demonstrates that such a lien is ordinarily
dated, for purposes of "first in time" priority against 6323(a)
competing interests, from the time of its filing.  Pp. 2-8.
945 F. 2d 1475, reversed and remanded.

 Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
Rehnquist, C.J., and White, Blackmun, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ.,
joined.  Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens
and O'Connor, JJ., joined.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
--------

No. 91-1229
--------
UNITED STATES by and through INTERNAL
REVENUE SERVICE, PETITIONER v.
BRUCE J. McDERMOTT et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the tenth circuit
[March 24, 1993]

 Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court.

 We granted certiorari to resolve the competing priorities
of a federal tax lien and a private creditor's judgment lien as
to a delinquent taxpayer's after-acquired real property.

 I
On December 9, 1986 the United States assessed Mr.
and Mrs. McDermott for unpaid federal taxes due for the tax years
1977 through 1981.  Upon that assessment, the law created a lien
in favor of the United States on all real and personal property
belonging to the McDermotts, 26 U.S. C. 6321 and 6322, including
after-acquired property, Glass City Bank v. United States, 326 U.
S. 265 (1945).  Pursuant to 26 U. S. C. 6323(a), however, that
lien could "not be valid as against any purchaser, holder of a
security interest, mechanic's lienor, or judgment lien creditor
until notice thereof . . . has been filed." (Emphasis added.) The
United States did not file this lien in the Salt Lake County
Recorder's Office until September 9, 1987.  Before that occurred,
however- specifically, on July 6, 1987- Zions First National
Bank, N. A., docketed with the Salt Lake County Clerk a
state-court judgment it had won against the McDermotts.  Under
Utah law, that

      created a judgment lien on all of the McDermotts' real
      property in Salt Lake County, owned . . . at the time
      or . . . thereafter acquired during the existence of
      said lien. Utah Code Ann. 78-22-1 (1953).

  On September 23, 1987 the McDermotts acquired title
to certain real property in Salt Lake County.  To facilitate
later sale of that property, the parties entered into an escrow
agreement whereby the United States and the Bank released their
claims to the real property itself but reserved their rights to
the cash proceeds of the sale, based on their priorities in the
property as of September 23, 1987.  Pursuant to the escrow
agreement, the McDermotts brought this interpleader action in
state court to establish which lien was entitled to priority; the
United States removed to the United States District Court for the
District of Utah.

 On cross-motions for partial summary judgment, the
District Court awarded priority to the Bank's judgment lien.  The
United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed.
McDermott v. Zions First Nat'l Bank, N.A., 945 F. 2d 1475 (1991).
We granted certiorari.  504 U.S. ___ (1992).

II

 Federal tax liens do not automatically have priority over
all other liens.  Absent provision to the contrary, priority for
purposes of federal law is governed by the common-law principle
that -`the first in time is the first in right.'- United States
v. New Britain, 347 U. S. 81, 85 (1954); cf.  Rankin & Schatzell
v. Scott, 12 Wheat. 177, 179 (1827) (Marshall, C. J.).  For
purposes of applying that doctrine in the present case- in which
the competing state lien (that of a judgment creditor) benefits
from the provision of 6323(a) that the federal lien shall "not be
valid . . .  until notice thereof . . . has been filed"-- we must
deem the United States' lien to have commenced no sooner than the
filing of notice.  As for the Bank's lien: our cases deem a
competing state lien to be in existence for -first in time-
purposes only when it has been -perfected- in the sense that "the
identity of the lienor, the property subject to the lien, and the
amount of the lien are established." United States v. New
Britain, 347 U. S., at 84 (emphasis added); see also id., at 86;
United States v. Pioneer American Ins. Co., 374 U. S. 84 (1963).

/* And state law does not determine this issue. Federal law does.
*/

 The first question we must answer, then, is whether the
Bank's judgment lien was perfected in this sense before the
United States filed its tax lien on September 9, 1987.  If so,
that is the end of the matter; the Bank's lien prevails.  The
Court of Appeals was of the view that this question was answered
(or rendered irrelevant) by our decision in United States v.
Vermont, 377 U. S. 351 (1964), which it took to "stan[d] for the
proposition that a non-contingent . . . lien on all of a person's
real property, perfected prior to the federal tax lien, will take
priority over the federal lien, regardless of whether
after-acquired property is involved." 945 F. 2d, at 1480.  That
is too expansive a reading.  Our opinion in Vermont gives no
indication that the property at issue had become subject to the
state lien only by application of an after-acquired- property
clause to property that the debtor acquired after the federal
lien arose.  To the contrary, the opinion says that the state
lien met (presumably at the critical time when the federal lien
arose) "the test laid down in New Britain that . . . `the
property subject to the lien . . . [be] established.'" 377 U. S.,
at 358 (citation omitted).  The argument of the United States
that we rejected in Vermont was the contention that a state lien
is not perfected within the meaning of New Britain if it
"attach[es] to all of the taxpayer's property," rather than "to
specifically identified portions of that property." 377 U. S., at
355 (emphasis added).  We did not consider, and the facts as
recited did not implicate, the quite different argument made by
the United States in the present case: that a lien in
after-acquired property is not -perfected- as to property yet to
be acquired.

 The Bank argues that, as of July 6, 1987, the date it
docketed its judgment lien, the lien was "perfected as to all
real property then and thereafter owned by" the McDermotts, since
"[n]othing further was required of [the Bank] to attach the
non-contingent lien on after-acquired property." Brief for
Respondents 21.  That reflects an unusual notion of what it takes
to -perfect- a lien.  Under the Uniform Commercial Code, for
example, a security interest in after-acquired property is
generally not considered perfected when the financing statement
is filed, but only when the security interest has attached to
particular property upon the debtor's acquisition of that
property.  9-203(1) and (2), 3 U. L. A. 363 (1992); 9-303(1), 3A
U. L. A. 117 (1992).  And attachment to particular property was
also an element of what we meant by -perfection- in New Britain.
See 347 U. S., at 84 ("when . . . the property subject to the
lien . . . [is] established"); id., at 86 ("the priority of each
statutory lien contested here must depend on the time it attached
to the property in question and became [no longer inchoate]").
The Bank concedes that its lien did not actually attach to the
property at issue here until the McDermotts acquired rights in
that property.  Brief for Respondents 16, 21.  Since that
occurred after filing of the federal tax lien, the state lien was
not first in time.

/* Experienced commercial litigators with experience in tax liens
find all of this to be absured. The bank's judgment lien is first
in time. It covers after-acquired property. If the liens both
attach at the moment that the judgment debtor gets the property,
the first filed lien clearly has priority. That is, a review of
the public records would lead a person reviewing them to see that
there are two liens competing in priority for after acquired
property. The one which goes first is the one that was filed
first. Right? */

 But that does not complete our inquiry:  Though the state
lien was not first in time, the federal tax lien was not
necessarily first in time either.  Like the state lien, it
applied to the property at issue here by virtue of a (judicially
inferred) after-acquired-property provision, which means that it
did not attach until the same instant the state lien attached,
viz., when the McDermotts acquired the property; and, like the
state lien, it did not become -perfected- until that time.  We
think, however, that under the language of 6323(a) (-shall not be
valid as against any . . . judgment lien creditor until
notice . . .  has been filed-), the filing of notice renders the
federal tax lien extant for -first in time- priority purposes
regardless of whether it has yet attached to identifiable
property.  That result is also indicated by the provision, two
subsections later, which accords priority, even against filed
federal tax liens, to security interests arising out of certain
agreements, including "commercial transactions financing
agreement[s]," entered into before filing of the tax lien.  26
U.S. C. 6323(c)(1).  That provision protects certain security
interests that, like the after-acquired- property judgment lien
here, will have been recorded before the filing of the tax lien,
and will attach to the encumbered property after the filing of
the tax lien, and simultaneously with the attachment of the tax
lien (i.e., upon the debtor's acquisition of the subject
property).  According special priority to certain state security
interests in these circumstances obviously presumes that
otherwise the federal tax lien would prevail-i.e., that the
federal tax lien is ordinarily dated, for purposes of -first in
time- priority against 6323(a) competing interests, from the time
of its filing, regardless of when it attaches to the subject
property.

 The Bank argues that "[b]y common law, the first lien of
record against a debtor's property has priority over those
subsequently filed unless a lien-creating statute clearly shows
or declares an intention to cause the statutory lien to
override." Brief for Respondents 11.  Such a strong
-first-to-record- presumption may be appropriate for
simultaneously-perfected liens under ordinary statutes creating
private liens, which ordinarily arise out of voluntary
transactions.  When two private lenders both exact from the same
debtor security agreements with after-acquired-property clauses,
the second lender knows, by reason of the earlier recording, that
that category of property will be subject to another claim, and
if the remaining security is inadequate he may avoid the
difficulty by declining to extend credit.  The Government, by
contrast, cannot indulge the luxury of declining to hold the
taxpayer liable for his taxes; notice of a previously filed
security agreement covering after-acquired property does not
enable the Government to protect itself.  A strong
-first-to-record- presumption is particularly out of place under
the present tax-lien statute, whose general rule is that the tax
collector prevails even if he has not recorded at all.  26 U. S.
C. 6321 and 6322; United States v. Snyder, 149 U. S. 210 (1893).
Thus, while we would hardly proclaim the statutory meaning we
have discerned in this opinion to be -clear,- it is evident
enough for the purpose at hand.  The federal tax lien must be
given priority.

 The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the
case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.

 So ordered.


 Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Stevens and Justice
O'Connor join, dissenting.

 I agree with the Court that under 26 U. S. C. 6323(a)
we generally look to the filing of notice of the federal tax lien
to determine the federal lien's priority as against a competing
state-law judgment lien.  I cannot agree, however, that a federal
tax lien trumps a judgment creditor's claim to after-acquired
property whenever notice of the federal lien is filed before the
judgment lien has -attached- to the property.  Ante, at 5.  In my
view, the Bank's antecedent judgment lien "ha[d] [already]
acquired sufficient substance and ha[d] become so perfected,"
with respect to the McDermotts' after-acquired real property, -as
to defeat [the] later-filed federal tax lien.- United States v.
Pioneer American Ins. Co., 374 U. S. 84, 88 (1963).

 Applying the governing -first in time- rule, the Court
recognizes-as it must-that if the Bank's interest in the property
was "perfected in the sense that there [was] nothing more to be
done to have a choate lien" before September 9, 1987 (the date
the federal notice was filed), United States v. New Britain, 347
U. S. 81, 84 (1954), "that is the end of the matter; the Bank's
lien prevails," ante, at 3.  Because the Bank's identity as
lienor and the amount of its judgment lien are undisputed, the
choateness question here reduces to whether -the property subject
to the lien- was sufficiently -established- as of that date.  New
Britain, supra, at 84.  Accord, Pioneer American, supra, at 89.
See 26 CFR 301.6323(h)-1(g) (1992).  The majority is quick to
conclude that -establish[ment]- cannot precede attachment, and
that a lien in after- acquired property therefore cannot be
sufficiently perfected until the debtor has acquired rights in
the property.  See ante, at 5-6.  That holding does not follow
from, and I believe it is inconsistent with, our precedents.

 We have not (before today) prescribed any rigid criteria
for -establish[ing]- the property subject to a competing lien; we
have required only that the lien -become certain as to . . . the
property subject thereto.- New Britain, supra, at 86 (emphasis
added).  Our cases indicate that -certain- means nothing more
than -[d]etermined and [d]efinite,- Pioneer American, supra, at
90, and that the proper focus is on whether the lien is free from
-contingencies- that stand in the way of its execution, United
States v. Security Trust & Savings Bank, 340 U. S. 47, 50 (1950).
In Security Trust, for example, we refused to accord priority to
a mere attachment lien that -had not ripened into a judgment,-
New Britain, supra, at 86, and was therefore -contingent upon
taking subsequent steps for enforcing it,- 340 U. S., at 51.  And
in United States v. Vermont, 377 U. S. 351 (1964), we recognized
the complete superiority of a general tax lien held by the State
of Vermont upon all property rights belonging to the debtor, even
though the lien had not "attach[ed] to [the] specifically
identified portions of that property- in which the Federal
Government claimed a competing tax lien."  Id., at 355.  With or
without specific attachment, Vermont's general lien was
"sufficiently choate to obtain priority over the later federal
lien," because it was "summarily enforceable- upon assessment and
demand.  Id., at 359, and n. 12."

 Although the choateness of a state-law lien under 6323(a)
is a federal question, that question is answered in part by
reference to state law, and we therefore give due weight to the
State's -`classification of [its] lien as specific and
perfected.'- Pioneer American, supra, at 88, n. 7 (quoting
Security Trust, supra, at 49).  Here, state law establishes that
upon filing, the Bank's judgment lien was perfected, even as to
the real property later acquired by the McDermotts, in the sense
that it was definite as to the property in question,
noncontingent, and summarily enforceable.  Pursuant to Utah
statute, from the moment the Bank had docketed and filed its
judgment with the clerk of the state court on July 6, 1987, it
held an enforceable lien upon all nonexempt real property owned
by the McDermotts or thereafter acquired by them during the
existence of the lien.  See Utah Code Ann. 78-22-1 (1953).  The
lien was immediately enforceable through levy and execution
against all the debtors' property, whenever acquired.  See Belnap
v. Blain, 575 P. 2d 696, 700 (Utah 1978).  See also Utah Rule
Civ. Proc. 69.  And it was -unconditional and not subject to
alteration by a court on equitable grounds.- Taylor National,
Inc. v. Jensen Brothers Constr. Co., 641 P. 2d 150, 155 (Utah
1982).  Thus, the Bank's lien had become certain as to the
property subject thereto, whether then existing or thereafter
acquired, and all competing creditors were on notice that there
was -nothing more to be done- by the Bank -to have a choate lien-
on any real property the McDermotts might acquire.  New Britain,
347 U. S., at 84.  See Vermont, supra, at 355.

 The Court brushes aside the relevance of our Vermont
opinion with the simple observation that that case did not
involve a lien in after-acquired property.  Ante, at 3-4.  This
is a wooden distinction.  In truth, the Government's
-specificity- claim rejected in Vermont is analytically
indistinguishable from the -attachment- argument the
Court accepts today.  Vermont's general lien applied to all of
the debtor's rights in property, with no limitation on when those
rights were acquired, and remained valid until the debt was
satisfied or became unenforceable.  See 377 U.S., at 352.  The
United States claimed that its later- filed tax lien took
priority over Vermont's as to the debtor's interest in a
particular bank account, because the State had not taken "steps
to perfect its lien by attaching the bank account in question"
until after the federal lien had been recorded.  Brief for United
States in United States v. Vermont, O. T. 1963, No. 509, p. 12.
-Thus,- the Government asserted, -when the federal lien arose,
the State lien did not meet one of the three essential elements
of a choate lien: that it attach to specific property.- Ibid.  In
rejecting the federal claim of priority, we found no need even to
mention whether the debtor had acquired its prop- erty interest
in the deposited funds before or after notice of the federal
lien.  If specific attachment is not required for the state lien
to be -sufficiently choate,- 377 U. S., at 359, then neither is
specific acquisition.

 Like the majority's reasoning today, see ante, at 5, the
Government's argument in Vermont rested in part on dicta from New
Britain suggesting that -attachment to specific property [is] a
condition for choateness of a State-created lien.- Brief for
United States in United States v. Vermont, supra, at 19.  See New
Britain, 347 U. S., at 86 (-[T]he priority of each statutory lien
contested here must depend on the time it attached to the
property in question and became choate-) (emphasis added).  New
Britain, however, involved competing statutory liens that had
concededly -attached to the same real estate.- Id., at 87.  The
only issue was whether the liens were otherwise sufficiently
choate.  Thus, like Security Trust (and, in fact, like all of our
cases before Vermont), New Britain provided no occa- sion to
consider the necessity of attachment to property that was not
specifically identified at the time the state lien arose.
 Nothing in the law of judgment liens suggests that the
possibility, which existed at the time the Bank docketed its
judgment, that the McDermotts would not acquire the specific
property here at issue was a -contingency- that rendered the
Bank's otherwise perfected general judgment lien subordinate to
intervening liens.  Under the relevant background rules of state
law, the Bank's interest in after- acquired real property
generally could not be defeated by an intervening statutory lien.
In some States, the priority of judgment liens in after-acquired
property is determined by the order of their docketing.  3 R.
Powell, Law of Real Property -481[1], p. 38-36 (P. Rohan rev.
1991) (hereinaf- ter Powell).  See, e. g., Lowe v. Reierson, 201
Minn. 280, 287, 276 N. W. 224, 227 (1937).  In others, the rule
is that -[w]hen two (or more) judgments are successively
perfected against a debtor and thereafter the debtor acquires a
land interest[,] these liens, attaching simulta- neously at the
time of the land's acquisition by the debtor, are regarded as on
a parity and no priority exists.- 3 Powell -481[1], pp. 38-35 to
38-36.  See, e. g., Bank of Boston v. Haufler, 20 Mass. App. 668,
674, 482 N. E. 2d 542, 547 (1985); McAllen State Bank v. Saenz,
561 F.Supp. 636, 639 (SD Tex. 1982).  Thus, under state common
law, the Bank would either retain its full priority in the
property by virtue of its earlier filing or, at a minimum, share
an equal interest with the competing lienor.  The fact that the
prior judgment lien remains effective against third parties
without further efforts by the judgment creditor is enough for
purposes of 6323(a), since the point of our choateness doctrine
is to respect the validity of a competing lien where the lien has
become certain as to the property subject thereto and the lienor
need take no further action to secure his claim.  Under this
federal-law principle, the Bank's lien was sufficiently choate to
be first in time.

 I acknowledge that our precedents do not provide the
clearest answer to the question of after-acquired property.  See
ante, at 8.  But the Court's parsimonious reading of Vermont
undercuts the congressional purpose-expressed through repeated
amendments to the tax lien provisions in the century since United
States v. Snyder, 149 U. S.  210 (1893)-of -protect[ing] third
persons against harsh application of the federal tax lien,-
Kennedy, The Relative Priority of the Federal Government: The
Pernicious Career of the Inchoate and General Lien, 63 Yale L. J.
905, 922 (1954).  The attachment requirement erodes the
-preferred status- granted to judgment creditors by 6323(a), and
renders a choate judgment lien in after-acquired property
subordinate to a -secret lien for assessed taxes.- Pioneer
American, 374 U. S., at 89.  I would adhere to a more flexible
choateness principle, which would protect the priority of validly
docketed judgment liens.

 Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.