Mubasher: Microsoft magnate Bill Gates believes that ultra-rich people like him should be paying “significantly higher taxes.”

“I’ve paid more taxes, over $10 billion, than anyone else, but the government should require the people in my position to pay significantly higher taxes,” the US billionaire said in an interview with CNN on Sunday.

Gates is the second richest man in the world after Amazon's Jeff Bezos.

These statements come after the US enacted a new tax law, which reduces taxes for corporations.

"I need to pay higher taxes," said Gates, whose net worth surpasses $90 billion.

Scrutinizing the tax bill, the Microsoft co-founder stated that it “was not a progressive tax bill. It was a regressive tax bill."

Gates further argued that the tax bill’s benefits will be felt more by the ultra-rich rather than the middle class or the poor, whom Republicans insist have enacted the bill for.

"People who are wealthier tended to get dramatically more benefits than the middle class or those who are poor, and so it runs counter to the general trend you'd like to see, where the safety net is getting stronger and those at the top are paying higher taxes," Gates emphasised.

"You still have about a sixth of the population living in conditions that should be very disappointing to us, and government policies need to really think, 'Why aren't we doing a better job for those people?'" Gates asked rhetorically.

Responding to a question by CNN host Fareed Zakaria on the "rising inequality" in the US, Gates stated: "All advanced democracies have to think about that."

Bill Gates has given away over $40 billion of his personal wealth to charitable causes.