> If someone owes a debt, place a lein on the property that prevents it from being sold until the owner makes good... or work out some kind of installment plan.

I can’t speak for every jurisdiction, but I do know that offering installment plans is a standard part of tax repayment plans.

These situations don’t occur until the back tax amount is relatively large. It takes many years and ignoring many, many tax collection attempts to reach this level of back taxes.

I understand why you’d want to prohibit this type of asset seizure, but you need to consider the unintended consequences: Many people would stop paying taxes if there was no real consequence for doing so. If you’re a shady landlord who intends to rent a house out forever and never sell it, why would you bother paying taxes if the laws prevented the government from actually collecting them from you?