Overview
The Taxman Cometh is a secondary quest in Hearts of Stone, and a joke at the player’s expense. In the markets of Oxenfurt, the tax official Walthemor Mitty stops Geralt to ask about some unexplained income.
Three questions
Mitty asks three questions, and each one refers to a well-known way players made easy money in the base game:
- Has Geralt ever traded cowhides in White Orchard? This refers to the old trick of killing cows around White Orchard to sell their hides.
- Has he bought shells in order to sell the pearls inside them? The shell-and-pearl trick.
- Has he ever walked into someone’s home and taken something without permission?
The verdict
Answer no to at least two of the questions about exploits, and Mitty hands Geralt a diploma naming him a Taxpayer in Good Standing, suggesting he frame it. Admit to two or more, and Geralt receives a summons to pay back taxes at the Vivaldi Bank in Novigrad. Until he pays, Vimme Vivaldi will not deal with him at all, not even for a game of gwent.