(finance) An amount of money in a company that is owed to someone and has to be paid in the future, such as tax, debt, interest, and mortgage payments.
To national debts there has been added a great mass of municipal and local indebtedness, which seems likely to equal, or even exceed in magnitude the liabilities of the central governments.
Or, when one person is compelled by law to discharge the legal liabilities of another, he becomes the creditor of the person for the money so paid.
In 1908 the state debt was $816,785, and the assets in bonds, railway mortgages and bank stocks exceeded the liabilities by $7 1 7,779.