Techlash: How big tech corporations exercise business power and escape democratic control

It is estimated that up to $900 billion is lost to corporate tax avoidance every year. This amounts to almost 40 percent of the global profits of multinationals. These profits are dominated by the big tech MAAFiA group - Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Alphabet. A small number of corporate tax centres in Europe are central to their profit-shifting and wealth-protecting strategies: Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland and Luxembourg. We know a lot about the economics of tax avoidance. But from a political science perspective two key questions remain unanswered: Who exactly are the legal accounting and business finance professionals that create these global tax structures? How exactly are they used by big tech groups to protect their profits and avoid tax? This project answers these questions in three steps.