Aliquot

In economics, an aliquot part is defined as one that is contained in another an exact number of times and is calculated as a percentage or proportion of a total.

To put it simply, if we divide a cake into 10 exactly equal pieces, each of the pieces is an aliquot of the cake.

Therefore, we can say that it has a meaning equivalent to proportional. In addition, its applications are various, including law, taxation or statistics. For example, there are various taxes that are taxed with a percentage of a total. This would be an aliquot part (the fee to be paid) of the whole or taxable base of the tax.

Origin of the word aliquot

This word comes from Latin, specifically from "aliquot" which means "a number of times." In turn, it is composed of "alitus" which would be the equivalent of "others" and "quot" which means "how much". Therefore, its meaning would be related to the division into equal parts of a whole or the proportion over a total.

A historical curiosity was related to the Value Added Tax or VAT. In several countries it was decided to establish a 0% quota for this staple product. In this way, there was no aliquot part of this tax to be paid by the final consumer. The goal was to help the less well off

However, the producers did pay for it. In this way, what the retail establishment did was include this tax in its cost price. In the end they ended up with a series of frauds. To resolve this, reduced VAT rates were chosen for the consumer. That is, for proportional parts of the lower tax.

Applications in various disciplines

This concept is used in various disciplines such as tax law, inheritance or statistics, among others.

• One of the most common uses is, as we have already seen, in tributes. A percentage is used as a proportion to calculate the amount to be paid.
• Also in law, especially in relation to inheritances. In this case, it is used to distribute an inheritance equally among its beneficiaries.
• In statistics it is used to choose a proportional sample from a population. This will be representative and smaller.

Examples of aliquot

To finish, we propose some numerical examples that will clarify possible doubts about this concept.

• In taxes it is, as we already know, the proportional part of something. Let's imagine that in Spain, Chile or any other country a product is taxed with a VAT of 21% and this is worth 100 monetary units (um). This tax will be (proportionality) CU21, which is calculated as 21% of the tax base, which is the price.
• In the case of an inheritance. If there are five heirs, each of them will have a share equal to the others of 20%. The total is calculated by multiplying this percentage by the number of parts. 5 * 20% = 100%. The inheritance is divided by multiplying the total by this percentage for each heir.
• In statistics, when we take a proportional part of a whole, we are using an aliquot. For example, a sample that represents 20% of a total population. The objective is that it be representative and that its study has a lower cost as it is smaller than the original population.