Lisbon - Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the world's richest man, said on Tuesday that the tax office in the United States has to store his financial data on a special computer because his fortune is so vast.
"My tax return in the United States has to be kept on a special computer because their normal computers can't deal with the numbers," he said at a Microsoft conference held in Lisbon.
"So I am constantly getting these notices telling me I haven't paid something when really it is just on the wrong computer," he added in comments broadcast on television.
"Then they will send me another notice telling me how bad they feel they that they sent me a notice that was a mistake," he said
Gates's fortune is put at $47-billion (about R284-billion), according to the latest list of the world's rich published by Forbes magazine.
Last month Time magazine named Gates and his wife Melinda, along with rock star Bono, its "Persons of the Year" for 2005, citing their charitable work and activism aimed at reducing global poverty and improving world health.
The couple's Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a $29-billion (R175-billion) endowment making it the world's biggest charity.
Auf einer in Lissabon abgehaltenen Konferenz des US-Softwareriesen Microsoft erklärte Bill Gates den Zuhörern, dass die US-Steuerbehörde IRS einen gesonderten Computer nur für die Bearbeitung seiner Steuererklärung vorhalten würde. Grund dafür sei, dass die Höhe der von ihm zu entrichtenden Steuerabgaben die Eingabemöglichkeiten des üblichen Steuersystems sprengen würde.

Gates beklagte, dass er wegen der Verwendung eines gesonderten Systems regelmäßig Mahnschreiben über angeblich nicht beglichene Steuern erhalte. Auf diese Mahnschreiben würden jeweils Entschuldigungsschreiben folgen. Das Magazin „Forbes“ hatte kürzlich das persönliche Vermögen des Microsoft-Gründers auf 47 Milliarden US-Dollar (etwa 39 Milliarden Euro) geschätzt.