Tax Avoiders

Tax Avoiders is a single-player video game for the Atari 2600 released in 1982. It was conceived by Darrell Wagner at Dunhill Electronics where he was billed on the packaging as a “Licensed Tax Consultant and former IRS Revenue Agent”.

The object of Tax Avoiders is to help “John Q” become a millionaire within one game year by collecting income and avoiding taxes. There are two alternating game phases. In one, the player moves around the screen, collecting dollar bills and avoiding red tape; this represents maximizing income for the quarter. At the end of the quarter, the other phase has the player move around to manage his investments while another sprite oscillates between an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent, a certified public accountant (CPA), and an investment adviser. If the player is caught by the IRS agent, he is audited, and always loses the audit, which takes 50% of his income. If he encounters the CPA, he is charged a fee but gains new tax-sheltered investment options. If he encounters the investment adviser, he can maximize his tax-sheltered investment returns.