Luís Calderón Gómez (Cardozo; Google Scholar), Whose Debt Is It Anyway?, 77 Tax L. Rev. __ (2023):

Yearly, corporations situation a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} of debt with a function carrying unclear tax penalties. So do people, who steadily tie their most important monetary asset to this kind of instrument. But this instrument shouldn’t be an unique or revolutionary monetary spinoff, however is easy vanilla debt with two or extra debtors, or “co-obligated debt”. Co-obligated debt poses a conceptual drawback for the legislation as a result of it doesn’t match neatly into the easy and dyadic authorized framework underlying the legislation’s conception of debt, the place one creditor lends cash to at least one borrower in change for a direct promise to pay the quantity borrowed plus curiosity. Such a framework collapses when the debt instrument has a number of debtors—as a matter of legislation or as a matter of reality. Consequently, courts and the IRS steadily wrestle with the implications of a transaction, unable to persistently discover a decision to the puzzle: whose debt is it anyway? This Article illuminates the beforehand unexplored facet of this basic side of the legislation on debt, investigating its roots in surety, warranty, and restitution legislation, and surveys the legislation’s inconsistent therapy of a number of obligors, emphasizing its erratic stances on curiosity deductions, cancellation of indebtedness earnings, and debt modifications.