Sounds a bit like an old ‘legal fiction’ in England - person A claimed that they were unable to pay their taxes because person B owed them money so sued them in the Court of Exchequer (which was not supposed to hear disputes between two subjects but could hear disputes between people who owed the Crown money and the Crown). As the court was a bit more efficient at the time than some of the alternatives and everyone wanted a speedy resolution to the dispute, no one challenged the (non-existent) debt to the Crown.