In 1964, the State of New York contracted with Schwab Bros. Trucking, Inc. (the contractor) for the construction of two sections of arterial highway in Buffalo. The contractor in turn made an agreement with Bethlehem Steel Corporation (Bethlehem) for the purchase and delivery of heavy construction materials to be used on the highway project. The materials were shipped to the job site between the first of August and the end of November, 1964.
Between January 15 and February 16, 1965, the District Director of the Internal Revenue Service assessed allegedly delinquent taxes due from the contractor in the amount of $200,672.65; and on February 16, pursuant to §§ 6321-6323 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U.S.C. §§ 6321-6323,1 2*****he filed with the Clerk of Erie County, New York, a notice of lien relating to these assessments.
The contractor experienced grave financial difficulties during early 1965 and at some point in late February or early March it was forced to abandon the construction project. On March 24, the State of New York terminated the contractor’s authority to proceed under the contracts.
At the time the contractor ceased work on the project, some of the materials supplied by Bethlehem had neither been installed in the project nor paid for by the contractor and remained stored at the site. On March 5, the District Director, pursuant to the tax lien filed by the IRS on February 16, levied upon and seized numerous pieces of equipment and supplies, including the heavy building materials supplied by Bethlehem.
On June 4, Bethlehem notified the District Director of its claim under § 39-c of the New York Lien Law, McKinney’s Consol.Laws, c. 33,2 which per*316mits a materialman to repossess and remove materials supplied by him but not paid for and which remain unused or uninstalled after the project has been completed or abandoned. Bethlehem also requested that the tax levy and seizure be withdrawn in its favor. The District Director refused the request and Bethlehem filed suit under 28 U.S. C. §§ 1340 and 2463 to recover possession of the seized materials.
Pursuant to a stipulation by the parties to the suit, the unused and uninstalled materials were sold and the proceeds were paid into the registry of the District Court, to be paid over as may be determined by the ultimate disposition of the issues in this case. The parties further stipulated that the tax lien filed by the IRS attached to the uninstalled materials in question, which, it was agreed, were lawfully levied and seized prior to Bethlehem’s exercise of Its right of repossession under § 39-e of the New York Lien Law, and that Bethlehem took all steps necessary to protect its rights, if any, under § 39-e. Indeed, the record before us reflects that the IRS tax lien was filed on February 16, three days before the earliest date on which the project could be considered abandoned and before Bethlehem’s right of repossession and removal accrued.
Bethlehem moved for summary judgment on the ground that its right to repossess and remove under § 39-c is a property right in the uninstalled materials which upon exercise extinguished the IRS lien which attached only to the property or interest in the property which the contractor then had. The IRS cross-moved for summary judgment asserting the priority of its lien and from the order granting that cross-motion and entering judgment for the Government, Bethlehem now brings this appeal. We affirm.
“The threshold question in this ease, as in all cases where the Federal Government asserts its tax lien, is whether and to what extent the taxpayer had ‘property’ or ‘rights to property’ to which the tax lien could attach. In answering that question, both federal and state courts must look to state law, for it has long been the rule that ‘in the application of a federal revenue act, the state law determines the nature of the legal interest which the taxpayer had in the property * * *.’ (footnote omitted) Morgan v. Commissioner [of Internal Revenue], 309 U.S. 78, 82 [60 S.Ct. 424, 426, 84 L.Ed. 585].” Aquilino v. United States, 363 U.S. 509, 512-513, 80 S.Ct. 1277, 1280, 4 L.Ed.2d 1365 (1960).
Once the nature and extent of the contractor’s property rights have been ascertained under state law, the questions of priority are then determined under federal law because § 6321 “creates no property rights but merely attaches consequences, federally defined, to rights created under state law * * United States v. Bess, 357 U.S. 51, 55, 78 S.Ct. 1054, 1057, 2 L.Ed.2d 1135 (1958). Since it is clear under the applicable portions of the New York Personal Property Law 3 that “the *317property” in the uninstalled materials had passed to the contractor by the dates of the federal tax assessment and the levy and seizure, the issues are narrowed to determining what property or other interest the appellant may have had by virtue of § 39-c and whether that interest affects the contractor’s property or rights to property in the uninstalled materials in a manner which defeats the IRS’s perfected tax lien.
The language and meager legislative history of § 39-c indicate that the provision was designed to remedy a specific plight in which materialmen often found themselves. Charles Howard Levitt, counsel to the Lien Law Revision and Enforcement Association, in a letter 4 urging the then Governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, to approve the bill which became § 39-c, wrote:
“Numerous cases occur annually where an operation is completed or abandoned, and the materials amounting to thousands of dollars are left at the operation. Notwithstanding the fact that the person responsible for the cost of this material is hopelessly insolvent, the seller of the material is not in a position to repossess himself of such material without obtaining the consent of the buyer. Such consent is rarely given. In every one of these instances, the material man whose material is left on the operation, sustains an unwarranted loss.”
Section 39-c was apparently enacted to provide a self-help remedy for these ma-terialmen and to avoid the senseless and unfair waste which might otherwise occur if they were not permitted to repossess and remove unpaid for and uninstalled materials. There is no indication In the language of the section or in the legislative history, however, that the legislature intended that the materialmen should retain a property interest in each item of the material until it is installed in the project. Rather, it seems likely that the legislature, without engaging in the use of property labels imbued with special meaning or legal consequences, merely intended that a right to repossess and remove unpaid for and uninstalled materials should accrue to the materialman if and when the project is completed or abandoned.
This limited legislative purpose is not subverted by a construction of the federal tax lien law and § 39-c which renders the materialman’s after accruing right inferior to the IRS’s earlier perfected tax lien. Indeed, both the state policy to avoid the unfairness and senseless waste resulting from the inability of the mate-rialman to recover uninstalled materials left at a completed or abandoned project site and the federal policy to create a uniform and manageable system for the priority of liens are effectuated by this construction.
This result also accords with United States v. Aquilino, supra, where the property interest of the contractor which the IRS unsuccessfully sought to attach was the bare legal title in funds held in trust for the benefit of the mate-rialmen, and in which the contractor had no beneficial interest. In the instant case, although the power of the contractor to dispose of the materials was considerably limited by § 39-c, at the very least it had the right to use the materials in the project and be paid by the state for them.
In the absence of clearer legislative intent to retain something akin to ownership in the materialman, we believe that the contractor’s “rights to proper*318ty” were sufficient for the attachment of the federal tax lien.
If the materialmen wish to establish priorities in these uninstalled materials and protection from federal tax liens, they may still avail themselves of the contractual secured interests which are protected under 26 U.S.C. § 6323.
Accordingly, we affirm the decision below.