increases by more than 50 percent.If demand is downward sloping and supply is upward sloping, the deadweight loss of a tax rises even more rapidly than the size of the tax. This occurs because the deadweight loss is the area of a triangle, and the area of a triangle depends on the square of its size. If you double the size of a tax, for instance, the base and height of the triangle double, so the deadweight loss rises by a factor of 4. In this case, if the size of a tax increases by 50 percent, the deadweight loss of the tax increases by more than 50 percent. See Section: Deadweight Loss and Tax Revenue as Taxes Vary.