The use of a spendthrift provision in a trust instrument is common. Generally, spendthrift provisions prohibit a third-party creditor from reaching a beneficiary’s interest in income and/or corpus of the trust until the trustee distributes such interest outright to the beneficiary. Because spendthrift provisions are creatures of state law, a common question is whether such protection extends to the IRS as a third-party creditor? This Insight discusses this topic more below.