To say that Senator Bernie Sanders is not a fan of the super-rich would be an understatement – ​​in fact, he wants to get rid of billionaires altogether.

That is why Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates – who has a fortune of $162 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index – surprised when the independent politician seemed interested in meeting him.

Gates approached Senator Sanders to film an episode for his new Netflix show “What’s next? The future with Bill Gates”, which aired this week.

In an article on his blog GatesNotes on Wednesday, the tech tycoon wrote that he did not expect to receive a response very quickly when he emailed Senator Sanders requesting an interview on the topic of income inequality.

The reason for this is that the 83-year-old politician does not approve of Gates’ lifestyle at all.

In 2019, Senator Sanders wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: “There should be no billionaires.”

Sanders called income inequality in the US between the working class and billionaires a “moral and economic scandal,” adding: “We cannot afford to maintain this level of income and wealth inequality, and we cannot afford a billionaire class.”

Gates wrote that this attitude caused “astonishment” among his friends when they heard about the meeting between the two.

“This was not my first meeting with the senator,” Gates revealed this week. “In the past, I found him quite approachable. I knew we shared views on many issues. We had talked briefly about the climate crisis, but we had never had a longer conversation – and certainly not about income inequality.”

That was exactly the topic of the discussion.

Gates wrote: “Bernie asked me some tough questions about how much wealth I thought was enough. We agreed that rich people should be taxed more.

“I asked him if he had any legislation to make this a reality. It was a great discussion.”

Plans to tax the super-rich

Senator Sanders has a plan for how he would tax people like Gates.

This means an annual tax of 1% on a married couple’s net worth over $32 million. For example, a couple with assets of $32.5 million would pay an annual tax of $5,000.

Under Senator Sanders’ plan, that tax rate would rise to two percent for couples with net worth between $50 million and $250 million, to three percent between $250 million and $500 million, and to four percent between $500 million and $1 billion.

For the billionaire class, this means that individuals with net worths between $2.5 billion and $5 billion would pay 6% taxes on assets over $32 million, 7% on assets between $5 billion and $10 billion, and 8% on assets over $10 billion.

These percentages apply to married couples and would be halved for single people.

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Senator Sanders has also proposed that the government should exclude billionaires and confiscate all assets over one billion dollars.

In an interview with HBO Max’s Who speaks with Chris Wallace, The Vermont senator said last year: “You may disagree, but I think you can get by on $999 million,” Sanders added. “I think they can survive just fine.”

The billionaires themselves also have proposals for taxing the super-rich.

For example, Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, coined the “Buffett Rule” after repeatedly pointing out that he pays the same percentage of income tax as his secretary Debbie Bosanek, inadvertently making her the poster child for tax inequality in the United States.

The problem stems from the fact that Buffett, who has a net worth of $145 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, pays a higher share of federal income taxes, while Bosanek pays a higher share of her income in Social Security than Buffett.

The Buffett Rule therefore states that no household with an annual income of more than one million dollars should pay a smaller share of its income than middle-class families.

It is an opinion that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon—also a billionaire himself—agrees.

Dimon said last month he would reduce Uncle Sam’s $35 trillion national debt by higher taxes on the rich.

He told PBS News: “Maybe you would just raise taxes a little bit. I would do that, like Warren Buffett does.”

This story originally appeared on Fortune.com