The Australia comparison: a self-employed electrician versus the six biggest tech firms

A sole-trader electrician in Australia, with A$90,000 of taxable income in 2025/26, pays an all-in effective rate of 21.8%. Over the decade to 2024, the six largest technology companies paid an average global effective rate of 18.8% on $2.5 trillion of profit. The ordinary tradesperson pays more than the giants' ten-year average. The margin is narrower than in other countries, and we show exactly why.

The small business: the working

Sole trader, Australia, 2025/26, net taxable income of A$90,000. No superannuation deductions, no offsets beyond those shown, no reliefs modelled. This is the baseline an unplanned sole trader actually faces. The Stage 3 tax cuts are in effect, which lowered the second band to 16%.

The multinational: the six biggest tech firms

Across the decade to 2024, the six largest technology companies generated $2.5 trillion of profit and paid an average effective corporate income tax rate of 18.8%, against statutory rates that averaged closer to 27% to 30%, according to the Fair Tax Foundation's 2025 report. The Fair Tax Foundation is a tax-transparency campaign group, not an official statistics body, so we flag the source as such; the underlying figures are drawn from the companies' own published accounts, which is what makes the number checkable. This is a global, ten-year, blended figure across six companies.

The comparison

Caveat A, the measure. The 21.8% all-in includes the 2% Medicare Levy, a social charge on the person, while the six firms' 18.8% is corporate income tax only. Strip the Medicare Levy out and the electrician's income-tax-only rate is 19.8% (A$17,788 ÷ A$90,000), still above the giants' 18.8% ten-year average. The margin is genuinely narrow here, narrower than in the UK or Canada, and we are not going to inflate it. But even on income tax alone, the ordinary sole trader edges above what six of the most valuable companies on earth averaged over a decade.

Caveat B, the scope. The 18.8% is a global blended rate across six companies and ten years. It is not an Australian rate. The honest framing is: an Australian electrician pays 21.8%, while the six largest technology companies reported a global average of 18.8%. Not "they pay 18.8% in Australia."

Why this gap is smaller, and still telling

Australia's Stage 3 cuts lowered the electrician's rate, which is why the margin here is only about three points. That is the honest picture: the gap narrowed because the small-business rate came down, not because the giants paid more. The point still lands. Even after a tax cut, an individual tradesperson on A$90,000 pays a higher effective rate than the decade-long global average of companies with the scale to route profit worldwide. The tools that produce 18.8% across $2.5 trillion are not available to someone with one van and one set of books.

Key facts

• Australian sole-trader electrician, A$90,000, 2025/26: income tax A$17,788 + Medicare Levy A$1,800 = A$19,588, an all-in rate of 21.76%.
• Income-tax-only sub-rate: 19.8%, still above the six firms' 18.8% average.
• Six biggest tech firms, global ten-year average to 2024: 18.8% on $2.5tn profit (Fair Tax Foundation, 2025).
• Multiple 1.2x; the narrow margin follows from Australia's Stage 3 cuts, which lowered the small-business rate.