delivered the opinion of the Court.
Sеction 523(a)(2)(A) of the Bankruptcy Code (Code) excepts from discharge in bankruptcy “any debt... for money, *215 property, services, or an extension, renewal, or refinancing of credit, to the extent obtained by... false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud.” 11 U. S. C. § 523(a)(2)(A). The issue in this case is whether § 523(a)(2)(A) bars the discharge of treble damages awarded on account of the debtor’s fraudulent acquisition of “money, property, services, or . . . credit,” or whether the exception only encompasses the value of the “money, property, services, or . . . credit” the debtor obtains through fraud. We hold that § 523(a)(2)(A) prevents the discharge of all liability arising from fraud, and that an award of treble damages therefore falls within the scope of the exception.
I
Petitioner owned several residential properties in and around Hoboken, New Jersey, one of which was subject to a local rent control ordinance. In 1989, the Hoboken Rent Control Administrator determined that petitioner had been charging rents above the levels permitted by the ordinance, and ordered him to refund to the affected tenants, who are respondents in this Court, $31,382.50 in excess rents charged. Petitioner did not comply with the order.
Petitioner subsequently filed for relief under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code, seeking to discharge his debts. The tenants filed an adversary proceeding against petitioner in the Bankruptcy Court, arguing that the debt owed to them arose from rent payments obtained by “actual fraud” and that the debt was therefore nondischargeable under 11 U. S. C. § 523(a)(2)(A). They also sought treble damages and attorney’s fees and costs pursuant to the New Jersey Cоnsumer Fraud Act. See N. J. Stat. Ann. §§56:8-2, 56:8-19 (West 1989).
Following a bench trial, the Bankruptcy Court ruled in the tenants’ favor.
In re Cohen,
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed in a divided opinion.
In re Cohen,
As the Court of Appeals recognized,
id.,
at 56, its interpretation of § 523(a)(2)(A) is in accord with that of the Eleventh Circuit but in conflict with that of the Ninth Circuit. Compare
In re St. Laurent,
II
The Bankruptcy Code has long prohibited debtors from discharging liabilities incurred on account of their fraud, embodying a basic policy animating the Code of affording relief only to an “honest but unfortunate debtor.”
Grogan
v.
Garner,
The most straightforward reading of § 523(a)(2)(A) is that it prevents discharge of "any debt” respecting "money, property, services, or . . . credit” that the debtor has fraudulently obtained, including treble damages assessed on account of the fraud. See
Field
v.
Mans,
Moreover, the phrase “to the extent obtained by” in § 523(a)(2)(A), as the Court of Appeals recognized, does not impose any limitation on the extent to which “any debt” arising from fraud is excepted from discharge. “[T]o the extent obtained by” modifies “money, property, services, or . . . credit” — not “any debt” — so that the exception encompasses “any debt... for money, property, services, or ... credit, to the extent [that the money, property, services, or . . . сredit is] obtained by” fraud. The phrase thereby makes clear that the share of money, property, etc., that is obtained by fraud gives rise to a nondisehargeable debt. Once it is established that specific money or property has been obtained by fraud, however, “any debt” arising therefrom is excepted from dis *219 charge. In this casе, petitioner received rent payments from respondents for a number of years, of which $31,382.50 was obtained by fraud. His fall 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 receivеd 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 nondisehargeable.
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... fоr 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 *220 eration of a motor vehicle if such operation was unlawful because the debtor was intoxicated,” § 523(a)(9). None of these use “debt for” in the restitutionary sense of “liability on a claim to obtain”; it makes little sense to speak of “liability on a claim to obtain willful and malicious injury” or “liability on a claim to obtain fraud or defalcation.” Instead, “debt for” is used throughout to mean “debt as a result of,” “debt with respect to,” “debt by reason of,” and the like, see American Heritage Dictionary 709 (3d ed. 1992); Black’s Law Dictionary 644 (6th ed. 1990), connoting broadly any liability arising from the specified object, see Davenport, supra, at 563 (characterizing § 523(a)(7), which excepts from discharge certain debts “for a fine, penalty, or forfeiture” as encompassing “debts arising from a ‘fine, penalty, or forfeiture’ ”).
Becаuse each use of “debt for” in § 523(a) serves the identical function of introducing a category of nondischargeable debt, the presumption that equivalent words have equivalent meaning when repeated in the same statute,
e. g., Ratzlaf
v.
United States,
The history of the fraud exception reinforces our reading of § 523(a)(2)(A). The Bankruptcy Act of 1898 prohibited discharge of “judgments in actions for frauds, or obtaining property by false pretenses or false representations,” § 17, 30 Stat. 550, and an award of punitive damages for fraud plainly fits in the category of “judgments in actions for fraud.” The exception was broadened in 1903 to include all “liabilities for obtaining property by false pretenses or false representations,” § 5, 32 Stat. 798, language that,
a fortiori,
encompasses liability for punitive damages. See
Brown,
As the result of a slight amendment to the language in 1984, referred to in the legislative history only as a “stylistic change,” see S. Rep. No. 98-65, p. 80 (1983), § 523(a)(2)(A) now excepts from discharge “any debt... for money, property, services, or . . . credit, to the extent obtained by . . . false pretensеs, a false representation, or actual fraud.” We, however, “will not read the Bankruptcy Code to erode past bankruptcy practice absent a clear indication that Congress intended such a departure,”
Davenport,
The conclusion that § 523(a)(2)(A) bars the discharge of all liability arising from fraud is further borne оut by the implications of petitioner’s alternative construction. The various exceptions to discharge in § 523(a) reflect a conclusion on the part of Congress “that the creditors’ interest in recovering full payment of debts in these categories outweigh[s] the debtors’ interest in a complete fresh start.”
Grogan,
*223 As petitioner acknowledgеs, his gloss on § 523(a)(2)(A) would allow the debtor in those situations to discharge any liability for losses caused by his fraud in excess of the amount he initially received, leaving the creditor far short of being made whole. And the portion of a creditor’s recovery that exceeds the value of the money, property, etc., fraudulently obtained by the debtor — and that hence would be dis-chargeable under petitioner’s view — might include compensation not only for losses brought about by fraud but also for attorney’s fees and costs of suit associated with establishing fraud. But see § 523(d) (allowing award of attorney’s fees and costs to the debtor where a creditor requests discharge-ability determination under § 523(a)(2) for a consumer debt that is ultimately found to be dischargeable). Those sorts of results would not square with the intent of the fraud exception. As we have observed previously in addressing different issues surrounding the scope of that exception, it is “unlikely that Congress ... would have favored the interest in giving perpetrators of fraud a fresh start оver the interest in protecting victims of fraud.” Grogan, supra, at 287.
In short, the text of § 523(a)(2)(A), the meaning of parallel provisions in the statute, the historical pedigree of the fraud exception, and the general policy underlying the exceptions to discharge all support our conclusion that “any debt... for money, property, services, or . . . credit, to the extent obtained by” fraud encompasses any liability arising from money, property, etc., that is fraudulently obtained, including treble damages, attorney’s fees, and other relief that may exceed the value obtained by the debtor. Under New Jersey law, the debt for fraudulently obtaining $31,382.50 in rent payments includes treble damages and attorney’s fees and costs, and consequently, petitioner’s entire debt of $94,147.50 (plus attorney’s fees and costs) is nondisehargeable in bankruptcy. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
It is so ordered.
Notes
The Bankruptcy Court characterized an award of treble damages under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act as punitive in nature, see