Pay your taxes, kids.

Tax dodgers beware: your children may be after you. Argentina's tax bureau is teaching kids how to pay taxes to bring in some of the estimated US$7.1 billion evaded each year. "We have to change the culture (of evasion) and our allies are the children," says head tax collector Alberto Abad. To reach youngsters, the bureau sponsors a splashy weekend TV program called El arca de Caramelito, a double meaning in Spanish of Caramelito's Ark and also Carmelito's Coffer. On part of the hour-long show, kids play a Pictionary-like game with questions about the tax system. And the spunky host, Cecilia Carrizo, sings, "This is our country and we have to care for it." "Arca" is part of a tax-education program aimed at kids. Tax collectors speak at schools and distribute a board game on which players must fulfill tax obligations to advance. This year, the bureau built a replica of a tax collection office in a Buenos Aires fun park. Nine more are planned around the country. If dodgers don't get the message, the government plans to hunt them down and, as President Nestor Kirchner says, put them in "striped prison suits." But the problem is widespread: misreported earnings, retail sales not rung up, employees paid under the table. By teaching kids to pay taxes, Abad hopes parents will also get the message.