Bill Gates advocates for a more progressive tax system where the wealthy pay significantly higher taxes, stating he should pay more and that such a system would have reduced his own wealth by over 60%. He supports taxing capital gains similarly to labor income and strengthening the estate tax, viewing taxes as a legal obligation, not a charitable choice.
US: Bill Gates Advocates Billionaire Tax That Would Wipe Out 62% of His Wealth — Here's Why. As published on: aol.com, Friday 14 February, 2025. Wealth inequality in the U.S. has grown over time, according to data from the Pew Research Center.
In 2022, ProPublica reported his annual average income from 2013 to 2018 was $2.85 billion, and his annual federal income tax rate was 18.4% — meaning he would have paid about $525 million in federal income tax each year, according to BI calculations. He's not one to complain, though.
In fact, the list of billionaires paying $0 in income tax reads like a who's-who of the world's most famous executives. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, for example, are the two wealthiest people in the world, according to the Forbes Billionaires' List.
The goal of my philanthropy is to reduce inequity. Globally, the worst inequity is in health. More than 4 million children under the age of five die every year, nearly all of them in poor countries. Climate change is increasingly a source of inequity because extreme weather is hardest on the world's poorest people.
Gates considers climate change and global access to energy to be critical, interrelated issues. He has urged governments and the private sector to invest in research and development to make clean, reliable energy cheaper.
The 20 most generous people in the world
Yes, Elon Musk pays taxes, but his payments vary significantly year-to-year, often coming in large bursts when he sells Tesla stock to realize gains from stock options, as seen with his reported $11 billion federal tax bill for 2021, a massive payment triggered by stock option exercises, contrasting with other years where he's paid little to no federal income tax due to holding appreciating stock, according to reports from Americans For Tax Fairness (2021), ABC7 (2021), ProPublica (2021), and CNBC (2021). His wealth, primarily tied to stock, isn't taxed until shares are sold, meaning he can have huge wealth growth with little income tax in certain years, but triggers massive tax bills when exercising options or selling shares, as detailed in reports from Americans For Tax Fairness (undated), CNN (2022), and The Guardian (2021).
Bezos paid zero federal income taxes in both 2007 and 2011. From 2006 to 2018, when Bezos' wealth increased by $127 billion, he reported a total of $6.5 billion in income. He paid $1.4 billion in personal federal taxes, a true tax rate of 1.1%.
And while it is true that billionaires (like all taxpayers) can grow their wealth through unrealized capital gains, they still owe tax when they acquire that capital. For instance, Elon Musk famously paid around $11B in personal income tax in 2021, likely the largest single personal tax bill of all time.
There isn't one single "highest tax paying country" as it depends on what's measured (income, corporate, total tax revenue), but countries like Denmark, Finland, Japan, and Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) consistently rank highest for top personal income tax rates, often exceeding 50-60%, while nations like Belgium can have the highest overall tax burden on labor (tax wedge) for average earners, with high social security. Nordic countries and some European nations generally have high income taxes, funding extensive social services.
The IRS 7-year rule primarily applies to keeping records for claiming a deduction for bad debts or losses from worthless securities, allowing a longer period to file for a credit or refund, but it's not a universal audit limit; it's often a recommended safe buffer for general record-keeping, with the standard IRS audit period usually being 3 years, extending to 6 years for substantial income omission (over 25%) or foreign income issues, and indefinitely for fraud.
The higher-income household still comes out well ahead, but the income tax has narrowed the inequality. Abolishing the income tax would be a huge windfall for high-income households. Those making between $500,000 and $1 million would, based on recent tax filings, save on average $155,000 every year.
While Buffett is number one as measured by total giving, George Soros has given away a larger percentage of his net worth than anyone else on this list: 76% so far. A significant amount of his Open Society Foundations' work over the years has gone to support democracy in places like Central and Eastern Europe.
The story of Chuck Feeney, a frugal billionaire who secretly gave away his fortune to charity and now hopes to inspire others to do the same.