Followers of the Chinese folk religion believe that there are 10 hells each ruled by a politician of sorts. There's a different hell for each type of sin. The religion also teaches that everybody goes to at least one
hell.
While in hell a person must toil to earn money to pay taxes on their
sins in life.
Filial descendants will burn spirit money for you so you'll have to work less on your road to heaven.
It's made of colourful
tissue paper, some is small, some is large, I suppose it's purpose is to take the place
of real money which is in most countries against the law to burn.
I am particularly fond of the ones that say "HELL BANK NOTE" in big letters. They come in denominations of 100,000$ or some other ridiculously large number.
The more
affluent among us may choose to buy life size tissue paper cars and other amenities to burn for their ancestors as well. I have seen tissue paper cars that sell for as much as a small new car would.