Federal Tax Lien
A claim against everything you own, and the public notice that makes it visible.
The thing most worth knowing
A lien and the notice of a lien are two different things, and only one of them is public. The IRS states a federal tax lien EXISTS once it has assessed the liability, sent a bill, and you have neglected or refused to pay. Filing the Notice of Federal Tax Lien is a separate act — the IRS states it "files a public document, the Notice of Federal Tax Lien, to alert creditors that the government has a legal right to your property." Everything visible to a lender, a title company or a credit file comes from the notice, not the lien.
What this covers
- What the IRS states a federal tax lien attaches to, and when it comes into existence
- The Notice of Federal Tax Lien as a separate, public act
- The four certificates that change a lien without paying it off: discharge, subordination, withdrawal and non-attachment
- What happens when a lien is filed against property held in someone else's name
- The two-stage hearing clock that runs after a lien notice is filed
This page routes. It does not repeat what the pages below already say, and it does not tell you which situation you are in.
Questions this raises
Does paying off the debt remove the lien?
The IRS states that paying the tax debt in full is the best way to get rid of a federal tax lien, and that it releases the lien within 30 days after the debt is paid. Release is not the same as withdrawal of the notice — a released lien can still show as having been filed.
Can I sell a house with a lien on it?
The route the IRS publishes for that is a certificate of discharge, applied for on Form 14135, which removes the lien from a specific piece of property while leaving it on everything else. Publication 783 is the IRS instruction booklet. Start early: the application is built around a transaction the IRS has to be able to see, and the form states additional information may be requested of you or a third party.
A lien was filed against property that is not the taxpayer's. What now?
The instructions to Form 9423 state that a third party whose property is subject to a collection action may appeal under the Collection Appeals Program, and list "the filing of a notice of lien against an alter-ego or nominee's property" among the appealable actions. A certificate of non-attachment is the separate route where the point is that the lien does not attach to you at all.
How long do I have to request a hearing after a lien is filed?
Publication 1660 states the IRS must notify you within 5 business days after the lien filing, and that you then have 30 days after that 5-day period to request a hearing with Appeals. It also states the lien notice indicates the date the 30-day period expires — use that printed date rather than calculating from the filing.
Notices that arrive in this situation
Options the IRS publishes
Listed because they relate to this situation, not because any of them applies to you. That is the IRS’s determination on your full financial position.
The vocabulary
What this page does not say
- Lien priority against other creditors is governed by Internal Revenue Code section 6323 and turns on the filing date against competing interests. No taxpayer-facing IRS source setting out those rules has been read, so this hub does not describe them.
Sourced to primary IRS materials and editorially reviewed. Not reviewed by a tax professional. Not tax advice. Every fact on this page comes from a linked record that carries its own sources and review date.