UCC filing complications with tax lien priority - need advice
Having a nightmare scenario here. Filed a UCC-1 on equipment financing for a client's manufacturing business, but now there's a federal tax lien that showed up after our filing date. The IRS says their lien takes priority over our secured interest even though we filed first. Attorney is telling me something about the tax lien relation-back doctrine but I'm not following how this affects our UCC perfection. Equipment is worth about $180K and the loan balance is $145K. Client is panicking about losing collateral coverage. Has anyone dealt with tax UCC priority issues before? I thought first-to-file generally wins but apparently tax liens operate under different rules.
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Freya Ross
Tax liens are a whole different beast from regular UCC filings. The federal tax lien can relate back to the original assessment date, not when it was actually filed. So even if your UCC-1 was filed before the tax lien notice, the IRS lien might still have priority depending on when the tax debt was originally assessed. You need to check the assessment date on the tax lien documents.
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Leslie Parker
•This is exactly right. The relation-back doctrine means the tax lien is effective from the assessment date, not the filing date. It's one of the most confusing aspects of secured transactions.
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Sergio Neal
•Wait so even if I file my UCC-1 perfectly and search all the records, a tax lien could still jump ahead of me? That seems incredibly unfair to lenders who do their due diligence.
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Savanna Franklin
You really need to pull the full tax lien documentation and compare dates carefully. Sometimes there are gaps you can work with. Also check if your state has any super-priority statutes that might protect certain types of secured interests against tax liens.
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Juan Moreno
•What kind of gaps should they be looking for? I'm dealing with something similar and my attorney just keeps saying 'it's complicated' without explaining anything useful.
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Freya Ross
•Look for the assessment date vs your UCC filing date. Also check if there was proper notice given by the IRS - sometimes procedural defects can invalidate the priority claim.
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Amy Fleming
•Had a case where the IRS assessment was actually after our UCC filing but they backdated it improperly. We successfully challenged the priority and kept our first position. Documentation is everything in these situations.
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Alice Pierce
I ran into something similar last year and ended up using Certana.ai's document verification tool to cross-check all the dates and filing details. You can upload your UCC-1 and the tax lien documents and it'll flag any discrepancies or timeline issues that might help your case. Saved me hours of manual document comparison and caught a critical date error I would have missed.
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Esteban Tate
•How does that tool work with tax documents? I thought it was just for UCC filings.
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Alice Pierce
•It analyzes any PDF documents for consistency and timeline conflicts. Really helpful when you're trying to establish priority dates between different types of liens.
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Ivanna St. Pierre
The equipment type might matter too. Some states give special protection to purchase money security interests even against tax liens. Was this new equipment financing or refinancing existing equipment?
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Butch Sledgehammer
•It was refinancing existing equipment, not a PMSI situation. Client had owned the equipment for about 3 years before taking out this loan.
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Elin Robinson
•That's unfortunate. PMSI super-priority would have been your best defense against the tax lien. With refinancing you're in a much tougher position.
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Atticus Domingo
THIS IS WHY I HATE THE TAX LIEN SYSTEM! You can do everything right, file properly, search all records, and still get blindsided by some IRS assessment that happened months earlier but wasn't recorded anywhere. The system is completely broken for secured lenders.
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Beth Ford
•I totally feel your frustration but unfortunately that's just how tax liens work. The IRS gets special priority treatment that overrides normal UCC Article 9 rules.
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Morita Montoya
•It really is unfair. Makes it almost impossible to do proper due diligence when hidden tax assessments can jump ahead of your security interest.
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Kingston Bellamy
Check IRC Section 6323 for the specific rules on when federal tax liens take priority over security interests. There might be some narrow exceptions that apply to your situation, especially around the timing of when the financing statement was filed versus when the tax assessment became effective.
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Joy Olmedo
•Section 6323 is incredibly dense. Is there a simplified version somewhere that explains the priority rules in plain English?
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Isaiah Cross
•The IRS Publication 1468 breaks down lien priority rules but it's still pretty technical. Your best bet is working with an attorney who specializes in tax liens.
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Kiara Greene
Had a similar issue last month where we thought we were going to lose priority to a tax lien. Used Certana.ai to verify all our filing dates and document consistency, which helped us build a timeline that showed our security interest was perfected before the tax assessment. The tool highlighted some discrepancies in the IRS paperwork that our attorney was able to use to challenge their priority claim.
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Evelyn Kelly
•That's encouraging! Did you end up winning the priority dispute?
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Kiara Greene
•We did, but it took about 4 months of back and forth with the IRS. Having the detailed document analysis from Certana definitely strengthened our position though.
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Paloma Clark
You might also want to check if the debtor filed any subordination agreements or if there were any bankruptcy filings that could affect lien priority. Sometimes there are other factors at play beyond just the UCC vs tax lien timing.
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Heather Tyson
•Good point about bankruptcy. If the debtor filed Chapter 11 the automatic stay could complicate the entire priority analysis.
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Raul Neal
•No bankruptcy filing in this case, but definitely worth checking for any agreements that might have modified the priority structure.
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Jenna Sloan
Whatever you do, don't assume the tax lien automatically wins. I've seen cases where lenders gave up too quickly when they actually had valid priority claims. The rules are complex but there are often technical defenses available if you dig into the details.
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Christian Burns
•This is great advice. Too many people just assume the IRS always wins without actually analyzing the specific facts and dates involved.
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Butch Sledgehammer
•Thanks everyone. Going to get copies of all the tax lien documents and have my attorney review the timeline in detail. Will also try that Certana tool to make sure I'm not missing any critical dates or inconsistencies.
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Sasha Reese
One more thing to consider - if this is a federal tax lien, make sure you're not also dealing with state tax liens that could complicate the priority analysis even further. State tax liens have their own rules and might not follow the same relation-back principles as federal liens.
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Muhammad Hobbs
•Great point. State tax liens can sometimes have even more aggressive priority claims than federal ones depending on the state statutes.
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Noland Curtis
•In my state, property tax liens get super-priority over almost everything. Always have to check for those separately from income tax liens.
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Diez Ellis
•The interaction between federal and state tax liens can get incredibly messy. Definitely need professional help to sort through all the different priority rules.
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