298
Thomas, J., dissenting
tancy that has pecuniary value and is transferable under state law would fall within § 6321 prior to the time it ripens into a present estate"). Cf. Bess, 357 U. S., at 55-56 (holding that no federal tax lien could attach to proceeds of the taxpayer's life insurance policy because "[i]t would be anomalous to view as 'property' subject to lien proceeds never within the insured's reach to enjoy"). By way of example, the survivorship right wholly depends upon one spouse outliving the other, at which time the survivor gains "substantial rights, in respect of the property, theretofore never enjoyed by [the] survivor." Tyler, 281 U. S., at 503. While the Court explains that it is "not necessary to decide whether the right to survivorship alone would qualify as 'property' or 'rights to property' " under § 6321, ante, at 285, the facts of this case demonstrate that it would not. Even assuming both that the right of survivability continued after the demise of the tenancy estate and that the tax lien could attach to such a contingent future right, creating a lienable interest upon the death of the nonliable spouse, it would not help the IRS here; respondent's husband predeceased her in 1998, and there is no right of survivorship at issue in this case.
Similarly, while one spouse might escape the absolute limitations on individual action with respect to tenancy by the entirety property by obtaining the right to one-half of the property upon divorce, or by agreeing with the other spouse to sever the tenancy by the entirety, neither instance is an event of sufficient certainty to constitute a "right to property" for purposes of § 6321. Finally, while the federal tax lien could arguably have attached to a tenant's right to any "rents, products, income, or profits" of real property held as tenants by the entirety, Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 557.71 (West 1988), the Grand Rapids property created no rents, products, income, or profits for the tax lien to attach to.
In any event, all such rights to property, dependent as they are upon the existence of the tenancy by the entirety
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