IRS buys computer to handle Bill G's tax load

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has a dedicated server for handling calculations related to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates's massive cash horde. At least, that's what chairman Bill is telling the Portuguese.

"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," Gates told a Microsoft conference in Lisbon, according to a report from Agence France-Presse. "So I am constantly getting these notices telling me I haven't paid something when really it is just on the wrong computer. Then they will send me another notice telling me how bad they feel that they sent me a notice that was a mistake."

There's something comforting about the thought of Gates needing to endure the IRS's equivalent of "patch Tuesday" with his taxes.

The idea, however, of a server not being able to handle figures in the billions seems a tad off (insert Windows joke here).

The IRS declined to comment on how many or what type of computers are used to handle Gates's taxes. It also dodged our question on what type of system is typically used to crunch returns. ®