MSCHF Creates Visual Dating Game That Helps You Find Love While Filing Taxes

Ah, taxes. One of the least romantic tasks an adult has to engage in annually. That’s not how MSCHF views it, as the creative group recently unveiled its latest project—a visual novel dating simulator that will help you file your taxes.

Coming to Steam and on its official website on April 4, 2023, Tax Haven 3000 makes filing income taxes a romantic endeavor as you “search for deductions while searching for love!”

As with most MSCHF initiatives, there is a deeper meaning behind the beautiful Fuschia-haired female lead, named Iris. This time, the collective is commenting on how tax filing services in the US aren’t free of charge.

“Most wealthy countries make tax filing free, if the burden of preparation is even passed along to individuals at all. But, corporate tax filing services are (by dint of extensive lobbying) predatory, parasitic bottlenecks,” the group explained.

Through the game-to-real-life interface, single filers without dependents will be able to use the storyline to create a self-prepared federal income tax return, though, MSCHF isn’t making promises that it’ll be completely error-free.

As Kotaku pointed out, on one of the “dates” with Iris, users will be asked to share their social security number with her—for tax purposes, of course. As fishy as that sounds, per co-founder Daniel Greenberg, Iris “doesn’t kiss and tell.”

Counterintuitively, Greenberg told the site that submitting information to Iris could be “safer than most big-box tax software,” considering the video game isn’t linked to the internet, so hackers can’t gain access to the information entered.

Those who end up falling in love with the anime character by the end of tax season can opt for the collector’s edition of the game that’ll be sold online, available in a retro software box with an installation disk from the 00s, with a body pillow to boot.

Even more confusingly, there’s a link on the video game’s official website to an “X-Rated Patch” that links to a post on the fanfiction archive Wattpad. Who knew taxes could be so exciting?

[via Kotaku and Complex, images via Tax Haven 3000]