Demand D₀(Q)
Supply S₀(Q)
Tax wedge t
Deadweight loss
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Governments write tax law naming a payer, but public economics shows the legal target and the economic burden are rarely the same thing. This simulator builds a real supply-and-demand market calibrated so the untaxed equilibrium always sits at the same price and quantity, then imposes a per-unit tax and solves exactly where the market re-clears: the price buyers now pay, the price sellers now keep, the shrunken quantity traded, the government's revenue, and the deadweight loss the tax creates. A demand-elasticity and a supply-elasticity slider let you see the real driver of incidence — the side of the market that can least adjust its quantity ends up absorbing most of the burden — while a "legally owed by" toggle demonstrates the equivalence theorem: flipping who statutorily remits the tax changes nothing about who actually pays, because the market only cares about the total wedge between the two curves.