Cite as: 535 U. S. 274 (2002)
Thomas, J., dissenting
The Court does not dispute this characterization of Michigan's law with respect to the essential attributes of the tenancy by the entirety estate. However, relying on Drye v. United States, 528 U. S. 49, 59 (1999), which in turn relied upon United States v. Irvine, 511 U. S. 224 (1994), and United States v. Mitchell, 403 U. S. 190 (1971), the Court suggests that Michigan's definition of the tenancy by the entirety estate should be overlooked because federal tax law is not controlled by state legal fictions concerning property ownership. Ante, at 279. But the Court misapprehends the application of Drye to this case.
Drye, like Irvine and Mitchell before it, was concerned not with whether state law recognized "property" as belonging to the taxpayer in the first place, but rather with whether state laws could disclaim or exempt such property from federal tax liability after the property interest was created. Drye held only that a state-law disclaimer could not retroactively undo a vested right in an estate that the taxpayer already held, and that a federal lien therefore attached to the taxpayer's interest in the estate. 528 U. S., at 61 (recognizing that a disclaimer does not restore the status quo ante because the heir "determines who will receive the prop-erty—himself if he does not disclaim, a known other if he does"). Similarly, in Irvine, the Court held that a state law allowing an individual to disclaim a gift could not force the Court to be "struck blind" to the fact that the transfer of "property" or "property rights" for which the gift tax was due had already occurred; "state property transfer rules do not transfer into federal taxation rules." 511 U. S., at 239- 240 (emphasis added). See also Mitchell, supra, at 204 (holding that right to renounce a marital interest under state law does not indicate that the taxpayer had no right to property before the renunciation).
Extending this Court's "state law fiction" jurisprudence to determine whether property or rights to property exist under state law in the first place works a sea change in the
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