Taxman

Taxman
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Attack
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Guilds
Illustrator(s)	Jessi J
Card text
You may trash a Treasure from your hand. Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand discards a copy of it (or reveals they can't). Gain a Treasure onto your deck costing up to more than it.

Taxman is an Action–Attack card from Guilds. It forces opponents to discard a copy of a Treasure that you trash, and then allows you to upgrade your trashed Treasure.

A weak and complicated Attack, Taxman was removed from the second edition of Cornucopia & Guilds.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You may trash a Treasure card from your hand. This is optional.
• If you do trash a Treasure, each other player with at least five cards in hand discards a copy of it from their hand if they can, or reveals a hand with no copies of it, and you gain a Treasure costing up to more than the trashed Treasure, putting it on top of your deck.
• You do not have to gain a more expensive Treasure; you may gain a Treasure with the same cost, or a cheaper Treasure.
• You have to gain a card if you trashed one though, if possible.

Strategy

Taxman is typically a very slow way to improve your payload and offers a relatively weak Attack. Given that it is also terminal, reduces your hand size and often provides no benefit on the turn it is played, it is often skippable. Although Taxman allows you to trash Treasures, it almost always requires you to replace them with another stop card, so it generally can't be used to thin your deck. While upgrading Treasures can be beneficial, doing so is generally inferior to thinning your starting Coppers, establishing deck control, and adding payload by other means. The fact that Taxman topdecks the gained Treasure is doubly detrimental from this perspective: not only does it mean that it decreases rather than increases your purchasing power on the current turn, it also slows down your cycling and reduces the chance that you'll find deck control cards in your next starting hand. These downsides can be avoided if you can use Taxman in a gain-and-play context, immediately drawing and playing the gained Treasure.

While Taxman's attack can be impactful in the early game, hindering your opponent’s ability to hit price points, it generally becomes progressively worse in the later stages of the game, which sees a decrease in both the probability of hitting a Treasure and the impact of discarding a single Treasure.

Occasionally, other effects allow Taxman to provide real thinning, substantially improving its appeal. For example, Sewers lets you trash an extra card, enabling Taxman to replace two stop cards with a single, better one; turning Copper into Ducat and trashing an additional Copper provides a comparable effect. Similar considerations apply when you can use Taxman to transform stop card Treasures into Treasures that have a neutral or positive effect on deck control, such as Supplies.

In weak Kingdoms, Taxman can sometimes be helpful, if Treasure-based payload or particular Kingdom Treasures (e.g. Crown) are appealing, sources of additional gains are lacking, and there isn’t a better use for your terminal space. Finally, Taxman's value may be slightly enhanced if you can get an extra benefit from trashing Treasures (such as with Tomb) or from gaining them (such as with Guildhall).

External strategy articles

Note: Article(s) below are by individual authors and may not represent the community's current views on cards, but may provide more in-depth information or give historical perspective. Caveat emptor.

• Titandrake's 2013 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		You may trash a Treasure from your hand. Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand discards a copy of it (or reveals a hand without it). Gain a Treasure card costing up to more than the trashed card, putting it on top of your deck.	Guilds	June 2013
		You may trash a Treasure from your hand. Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand discards a copy of it (or reveals they can't). Gain a Treasure onto your deck costing up to more than it.	Guilds & Cornucopia (2017 printing)	March 2018

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Belastinginner
Finnish	Verottaja
French	Percepteur
German	Steuereintreiber			Du darfst eine Geldkarte aus deiner Hand entsorgen. Jeder Mitspieler mit 5 oder mehr Karten auf der Hand muss die gleiche Karte ablegen (oder zeigt seine Handkarten ohne die entsprechende Karte). Nimm dir eine Geldkarte, die bis zu mehr kostet als die entsorgte Karte und lege sie auf deinen Nachziehstapel.	(2013)
	Steuereintreiber			Du darfst eine Geldkarte aus deiner Hand entsorgen. Jeder Mitspieler mit 5 oder mehr Karten auf der Hand legt eine gleiche Karte ab (oder deckt auf, dass er das nicht kann). Nimm eine Geldkarte, die bis zu mehr kostet als jene Karte und lege sie auf deinen Nachziehstapel.	(2019) "..., und lege sie auf deinen Nachzieh­stapel."
Japanese	収税吏 (pron. shūzeiri)			手札の財宝カード1枚を廃棄してもよい。手札が5枚以上の他のプレイヤーは全員、それと同じカード1枚を捨て札にする(同じカードがない場合、手札を公開する)。その後、あなたは廃棄したカードよりコストが最大で高い財宝カード1枚を山札の上に獲得する。
Korean	세금징수원 (pron. segeumjingsuwon)
Polish	Poborca podatkowy (lit. tax collector)				Although Polish version is not released, this name is referred to in Polish Dominion 2E rulebook.
Russian	Сборщик Налогов (pron. sborshshik nalogov)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

This started in Cornucopia, based on an idea that didn't go far in Alchemy. For the Cornucopia version, the discarding was not limited to players with five+ cards in hand, and the treasure you gained didn't go on your deck. It was painful and not good enough. In Hinterlands I tried a version that gained you two cards. Finally it moved here and I fixed it up. It's a lot of words, that's like a theme of this set. It does a fine job of feeling like a new attack though, and well that's what that takes.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Guild Cards, June 2013

Second Edition removal

You know, at first it was like, what do I even take out of Guilds, and in the end I am happy to see all three cards go. Taxman just doesn't do enough for a terminal. Sometimes it's the only trashing, but that's sure no reason to keep it.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of Cornucopia & Guilds 2E, February 2024