"The court was sending a message: Don't rely on the courts to clean up the tax code, '" says Lipton, who chairs the American Bar Association's tax section.

FORBES: Windfall

Charles Munn, the ceo of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland, says that Scottish mutual funds in particular were successful in America because they didn't rely on local agents for "cattle counting, " instead sending their own auditors.

FORBES: Golden age redux

Freelancers used to rely on exchanging business cards at networking events, putting up flyers at local shops and sending out postcards to nearby businesses.

FORBES: A Business Of One: 5 Strategies For Successful Freelancing

Some of them rely on technology other than NFC, such as offering services that let people pay for purchases by sending text messages or by scanning product bar codes using a phone's QR-code reader.

WSJ: What's in Your Mobile Wallet? Not Much