Cite as: 523 U. S. 213 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
charge. In this case, petitioner received rent payments from respondents for a number of years, of which $31,382.50 was obtained by fraud. His full liability traceable to that sum—$94,147.50 plus attorney's fees and costs—thus falls within the exception.
Petitioner does not dispute that the term "debt" encompasses treble damages or that the phrase "to the extent obtained by" modifies "money, property, services, or . . . credit." He nonetheless contends that "any debt . . . for money, property, services, or . . . credit, to the extent obtained by" fraud does not include treble damages awarded in a fraud action. Petitioner submits that § 523(a)(2)(A) excepts from discharge only the portion of the damages award in a fraud action corresponding to the value of the "money, property, services, or . . . credit" the debtor obtained by fraud. The essential premise of petitioner's argument is that a "debt for" money, property, or services obtained by fraud is necessarily limited to the value of the money, property, or services received by the debtor. Petitioner, in this sense, interprets "debt for"—or alternatively, "liability on a claim for"—in § 523(a)(2)(A) to mean "liability on a claim to obtain," i. e., "liability on a claim to obtain the money, property, services, or credit obtained by fraud," thus imposing a restitutionary ceiling on the extent to which a debtor's liability for fraud is nondischargeable.
Petitioner's reading of "debt for" in § 523(a)(2)(A), however, is at odds with the meaning of the same phrase in parallel provisions. Section 523(a) defines several categories of liabilities that are excepted from discharge, and the words "debt for" introduce many of them, viz., "debt . . . for a tax or a customs duty . . . with respect to which a return . . . was not filed," § 523(a)(1)(B)(i), "debt . . . for fraud or defalcation while acting in a fiduciary capacity, embezzlement, or larceny," § 523(a)(4), "debt . . . for willful and malicious injury by the debtor to another entity," § 523(a)(6), and "debt . . . for death or personal injury caused by the debtor's op-
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