Supreme Court voids tax lien on seized cars after tax law expired, ruling seizure does not transfer ownership.

The Supreme Court set aside a lower court decision that denied the release of five seized cars from tax enforcement. The tax authority argued that the statutory lien created by seizure remained valid despite the expiration of the underlying tax law, claiming seizure transferred ownership rights. The court rejected this, holding that seizure is merely a procedural act and that the lien extinguished automatically when the governing tax statute ceased to apply.