11.   Bill supporters argue that Enron executives pushed the limits of accounting rules to boost the value of their stock options.

12.   Better still, accounting rules allowed many firms to book profits based on pension gains.

13.   A change in American accounting rules obliged Sony to greatly accelerate write-offs of movie promotion costs, undoing the effects of a crop of hit films in the year.

14.   A group of banking executives want the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Accounting Standards Board to take time for further study of a proposed derivative accounting rule.

15.   According to EU accounting rules, receipts from government asset sales may not be used to lessen the deficit.

16.   Accounting rules allow companies whose pension assets exceed their liabilities to feed the investment gains into their profits.

17.   Accounting rules require businesses to estimate the cost of providing health-care benefits to their employees in the future and to deduct that value from their earnings.

18.   Accounting rules require companies to write off goodwill against their earnings.

19.   Accounting rules barred the use of this method because CMGI formerly owned more than half of all Lycos stock.

20.   Accounting rules related to the Fleet-Shawmut merger would otherwise keep Fleet from launching a normal stock buyback for two years, said Cassidy.