Japan's accounting rules contain loopholes that allow companies to hide the economic substance of their performance.

ECONOMIST: Company accounts

Ruble, who is appealing, had been accused of writing letters blessing knowingly bogus tax shelters--complicated transactions without economic substance that created massive phony losses used to offset massive taxable income.

FORBES: Informer

SILOs came into wide use after the government shut down an earlier form of lease deal, called LILOs (lease-in, lease-out) in 1999, contending they had no economic substance and were simply improper tax shelters.

FORBES: Will SILOs Collapse?

The Senate voted to write into the tax code an "economic substance" rule: Even if taxpayers follow IRS regs, they can't claim a tax break Congress didn't intend on a deal made primarily for tax purposes.

FORBES: Public Relations Pickle

The Bush Treasury calls this an overreaction and says economic substance should be left to the courts. (Kerry favors putting economic substance in the code.) A Heinz win could weaken the case for relying on the courts.

FORBES: Public Relations Pickle

But the deadly solicitations of any addictive substance -- cocaine, alcohol, nicotine -- rely upon a social, economic, and political infrastructure.

CNN: The price of our oil addiction