Protection implicitly taxes consumers by raising prices, in a manner akin to a consumption tax. This paper presents an analysis of the distribution of the burden of this 'protection tax' across different types of households. The households are differentiated on the basis of (a) principal source of income, (b) nature of housing occupancy (c) age of household head, (d) number of adults and (e) number of children. The analysis depends on simulations using an extended version of the ORANI model of the Australian economy. That is, the 'standard' version of the ORANI model has been augmented with data from the 1981-82 Income and Housing Survey and from the 1984 Household Expenditure Survey.