Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/108

 100 FEDBBAL BEPORTEB. �"If any person, ♦ * liable to pay a tax, shall neglect or refuse to pay the same after demand, the amount shall be a lien in favor of the United States fram the time it was due until paid, * * * upon ail property, etc., belonging to such person," etc. The statute does not say "upon ail prop- erty which may have belonged to such person when the tax accrued." �This or similar language would, I think, have been em- ployed if congress had intended to give the statute this effect. It must be conceded that the words "ail property * * * belonging to such person" must be construed as referring to some time to be ascertained by the context ; and it may also be conceded that we might, without doing violence to the lan- guage of the law, refer them to the time when the tax became due, and make the clause read "ail property, etc., belonging to such person, etc., at the time the tax became due." This, however, does violence to the spirit of the act for reasons already stated. Another reading is authorized by the lan- guage, and is in harmony -with the spirit, and that is the one I have adopted, namely, that the words in question refer to the time when the demand is made, and may be phrased thus : "AU property, etc., belonging to such person at the time such demand is made." By this construction the lien, when it once attaches, relates back to the time when the tax was due, but it does not attach to the property transferred to innocent purchasers prier to demand. This view also har- monizes with the general policy of the law relating to land titles, which is to protect the citizen against loss from secret liens, not disolosed by any public record nor ascertainable by due diligence. Nor is it unjust toward the government, for it is fair to presume that the government, armed as it is with so many agencies and appliances for ascertaining what taxes are due and unpaid, and from whom, and all-powerful as it is to enforce its rights, will, within reasonable time, make demand, or take some steps in the direction of making col- lections, in ail cases where there is delinquency. The gov- ernment may protect itself by diligence if the view I take of the statute shall prevail; but, if the opposite vifw is sus- ��� �