Bill Gates Says He Would Set the Tax Rate 'For Rich People' Similar to Him at 62%: 'A Huge Amount of Wealth' Bill Gates is worth over $160 billion.
By Sherin Shibu Edited by Melissa Malamut
Key Takeaways
- Bill Gates would set tax rates at 62% for billionaires, including himself.
- "I would set tax rates quite a bit higher for rich people," he said in a podcast interview that aired on Monday.
Does Bill Gates, the sixth richest person in the world with a net worth of $163 billion, think he's too rich?
Gates avoided answering "yes" or "no" in a September episode of the Netflix series "What's Next? The Future with Bill Gates." Instead, he stated that it was "kind of wild" that billionaires even existed.
"It's a huge amount of wealth, which if you even tried to consume it would be kind of absurd," he said.
Related: Bill Gates Recommends These Books for Your Summer Reading List
On a podcast episode of On with Kara Swisher, which aired Monday, Gates specified that he would set up a different tax framework for the ultra-wealthy if he were in charge of tax policies, and set the rate around 62%.
"I would set tax rates quite a bit higher for rich people," he said in the episode, titled 'How to Tax the Rich, AI, Misinformation, & the Election." He referenced Senator Bernie Sanders and stated, "I would not make it illegal to be a billionaire. [Bernie Sanders] would take away over 99% of what I have. I would take away 62% of what I have. So that's a difference."
Bill Gates. Photo by Mike Lawrence/Getty Images
Gates is one of the co-founders of the Giving Pledge, an organization started in 2010 to inspire billionaires to publicly commit to philanthropy. He has given away $77.6 billion so far through the Gates Foundation.
His ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, left the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in May and announced that she would be giving $1 billion to organizations fighting for women's rights.
