Are you saying these companies broke the law?

No. Every figure here describes legal tax positions. The companies followed the rules. The point is that the rules hand large multinationals tools a small business cannot use, and the result is a small business often paying the higher effective rate. The argument is with the law, not the companies obeying it.

Is the 277.8 billion dollars money that was owed?

No. It is a counterfactual, the difference between what average headline corporate rates would have implied and what these companies actually paid. The body that calculated it calls it a tax gap. It is tax that was legally not paid, not tax evaded or withheld in breach of any rule.

Why compare it to vaccines and budgets?

Because a figure this large is hard to grasp on its own. Setting it against documented global costs is a way to see its scale. It is an illustration of size, not a claim about where the money should have gone.

Is it fair? In five of six countries, the small business pays the higher rate

ByLoopholeKiln EditorialPublished17 June 2026

Figures current as of1 January 2026·Corrections

The verdictVol. I · 2026

Five of six.

In five of the six countries we examined, a typical small business pays a higher effective tax rate than a large multinational. The sixth, India, runs the other way. Not one company here broke a law. The question the arithmetic leaves is not about the companies. It is about the rules that produce the gap, and whether they are the right ones.

The six countries, on the same measure

We computed what a typical small business pays and what a large company or multinational pays, on the same measure, every figure sourced, across six countries on five continents.

Each large-company figure carries its scope. The full benchmarks, measures and sources are on the league table and each country page. In five of the six, the small business pays more. In India alone the personal system is light enough that it usually pays less. Five of six.

Country	A small business pays	A large company or multinational pays
United States	25.4%	4.9% (US federal)
United Kingdom	26.9%	13.5% (global)
Canada	28.3%	18.8% (global)
Australia	21.8%	18.8% (global)
South Africa	22.2%	18.8% (global)
India	usually lower than the company rate	the exception

India · the exception that proves the rule

The decade gap

$277.8billion dollars

The tax six firms legally did not pay over a decade.

The clearest single figure does not come from us. An independent body, the Fair Tax Foundation, examined the six largest US technology companies over the ten years to 2024. On 2.5 trillion dollars of profit they paid an effective tax rate of 18.8 percent, against an average headline corporate rate of about 27 percent. The difference, the tax that headline rates implied but that these companies were legally not required to pay, came to 277.8 billion dollars over the decade.

What $277.8 billion dollars could have paid for

A number that large is hard to feel. Set against things with real, documented costs, it is:

about 13 timeseverything the world has spent eradicating polio since 1988
enough to fully immunise around 3.8 billion childrenat the cost the UN actually pays per child
around 80 yearsof the World Health Organization's entire programme budget
about 18 timesthe largest replenishment of the global fund that fights HIV, tuberculosis and malaria
about 15 timesthe World Food Programme's entire annual budget
roughly a decadeof the developing world's full bill for universal basic water and sanitation, as estimated by the World Bank
nearly three timesthe world's annual shortfall in education funding, as measured by UNESCO
the entire United Nations regular budget for about 77 yearsor the UN Refugee Agency about 26 times over
more than the entire annual economyof New Zealand, of Greece, of Qatar, or of Morocco
more than every wealthy government on earth gavein foreign aid in a year

Every figure carries its source below. These are not where the money was owed. They are a way to see the scale of a gap that one set of rules opens for those large enough to use it.

And this is six companies

That 277.8 billion dollars is six firms, in one industry, over ten years. The pattern is not rare. It is the norm among the largest companies, and the numbers only grow as the lens widens.

Six firms · one industry · ten years
Across 342 of the largest consistently profitable US corporations, the average effective federal tax rate was 14.1 percent from 2018 to 2022, against a 21 percent headline rate. Twenty-three of them paid nothing at all across five straight profitable years.
Hundreds of firms · five years
In a single year, 2020, at least 55 of the largest US corporations paid no federal income tax on a combined 40.5 billion dollars of profit.
The whole world · every year
Step back to the whole world, and the Tax Justice Network estimates that about 347.6 billion dollars is lost every year to multinational profit-shifting, and about 492 billion dollars a year once personal wealth is added. The EU Tax Observatory estimates that multinationals shift around a trillion dollars of profit into tax havens each year, roughly 35 to 40 percent of all the profit they book outside their home countries.

Read the first and last figures together. The entire decade gap of the six tech firms, 277.8 billion dollars, is about 80 percent of what the world loses to corporate tax abuse in a single year.

Why a small business cannot do the same

The gap is not a reward for cleverness or a penalty for laziness. A multinational drives its rate down with tools that exist only at scale: intellectual property booked in a low-tax country, loans between group companies across borders, profit allocated by transfer pricing. A self-employed plumber or a small limited company has one set of books in one country. There is nothing to route and nowhere to shift. The menu exists; a normal business cannot order from it.

The honest counter-case

A low effective rate is not proof of wrongdoing, and we will not pretend it is. A rate can be low for legitimate reasons: real losses carried forward, heavy investment written down, research reliefs that governments created on purpose, or a genuinely low headline rate in a particular country. The companies in these figures followed the law as written, and India shows the pattern can run the other way where a personal tax system is generous to the small. The case here is narrower and harder to answer: the rules hand a set of tax-reducing tools to the largest companies that a small business can never use, and the result is that the small business often pays the higher rate.

Key facts

In five of six countries here (UK, US, Australia, Canada, South Africa) a typical small business pays a higher effective rate than a large multinational; India is the exception.
The six largest US tech firms paid 18.8 percent over the decade to 2024 against an average headline rate of about 27 percent, a gap of 277.8 billion dollars (Fair Tax Foundation, 2025).
That gap is roughly 13 times all polio-eradication spending since 1988, around 80 years of the WHO programme budget, or enough to fully immunise about 3.8 billion children.
It is more than the entire annual GDP of New Zealand, Greece, Qatar or Morocco, and more than the whole world's annual foreign aid.
Across 342 of the largest profitable US corporations the average effective federal rate was 14.1 percent (2018 to 2022), and 55 paid zero in 2020 alone.
Worldwide, about 347.6 billion dollars a year is lost to corporate profit-shifting, 492 billion dollars a year in total (Tax Justice Network).
None of it broke a law. The argument is with the rules, not the taxpayers obeying them.

In closing

So, is it fair?

That is a question about the rules, and the governments that wrote them and keep them. We will not answer it for you. We have shown what a small business pays, what a large one pays, the gap over a decade, what it could have funded, and how far the pattern runs beyond a handful of firms, all sourced and all legal. Whether a system that produces this is fair is your judgement to make.

It has been forced into the open before. In 2012 a parliamentary committee examined a coffee chain, a search company and an online retailer. The public response fed directly into the Diverted Profits Tax in 2015, the OECD's base-erosion programme, and the global minimum tax agreed from 2021. Public attention, armed with arithmetic, has moved these rules before. It can again.