Bill Gates says the rich would be a lot poorer if he set taxes — but banning billionaires isn't on his agenda

• Bill Gates said the wealthy would be about two-thirds poorer if he controlled the tax system.
• But the Microsoft cofounder said he wouldn't go as far as outlawing fortunes above a certain size.

Bill Gates says if he set tax rates, the rich would be almost 70% poorer — but unlike Bernie Sanders, he would not outlaw billionaires.

The Microsoft cofounder said that "under the tax system I would go for, the wealthy would have, say, a third as much." He revealed his ideal tax policy in an episode of his new Netflix series "What's Next? The Future with Bill Gates."

The comment suggests Gates would like to see Elon Musk, the world's richest man with a net worth of $249 billion per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, only have about $83 billion to his name.

Apply the same calculation to Gates — who's sixth on the rich list — and his personal fortune would be just under $54 billion versus $161 billion. He recently told The Independent that he would be "tens of billions of dollars poorer" if he wrote the tax code.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation cofounder said it was "kind of wild" that billionaires exist, and he believed that fortunes of that size should be "given back to society, not just consumed."

Gates argued that a rich country such as the US should have a better social safety net, and raising taxes would help fund universal access to healthcare as well as good-quality housing and education.

He emphasized he's "not someone who thinks outlawing wealth above a certain size is the right way to go about it," but added that he's "biased" as a billionaire himself.

In the episode, Sanders told Gates that he'd like to get rid of billionaires entirely. The progressive lawmaker told the computing pioneer that while he was a "very innovative guy" and deserved to be financially rewarded for his contributions, billions of dollars was an excessive payout.

"How much do you deserve? Can you make it on a billion? Think you could feed the family? Probably. Pay the rent? Maybe," he quipped.

The Vermont senator said it wasn't acceptable to him that a tiny elite wields such vast wealth and power.

"I have real concerns about what I would call uber-capitalism, and that is that incredible concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few, and what it means to our whole society," he said.

In contrast, "Shark Tank" star Mark Cuban said in the episode that billionaires show the American Dream is alive and well, and it's patriotic to get "filthy, stinkin' rich" then pay big taxes.