Warren Buffet ranks #1 in the Forbes list of wealthiest people on the planet. The man has a net worth of $62.1 billion, most of which he has pledged to the William and Melinda Gates Foundation. The total amount of his philanthropic gifts has been valued around $37 billion. A gift, by the way, that is technically not considered as a donation but as wealth : The gift is of shares in all his current investment holdings. Buffett is confident the value will go up in the future -- even a modest increase in value each year would add several billion dollars in annuities to the gift.

Yet Warren Buffett is not only going to be remembered as the man who has given the most wealth away. Warren Buffett is going to be remembered as the billionaire who admitted on national TV that he pays too little in taxes.

Take your time ... let that sink in .... yes, you read that right ....

Warren Buffett says that our taxation policies favor the mega wealthy and punish the working class. In his little experiment he demonstrated how he pays on average 17% of his earned income to the government. This is not even taxes on his wealth, which is covered by ever decreasing capital gains taxes. In a little experiment he conducted in his own company, he discovered he pays a disproportionately low percentage of taxes on his earned income compared to his secretary and office workers who have to pay on average 32%.

The video we have here is his conversation with Tom Brokaw on the subject. In the Nightline piece he not only rails against the government's taxation dishonesty, he also announced a challenge: He pledged to donate $1 million to charity if the collective group of the richest Americans would admit they pay less taxes than the average American.

Of course, for a guy who had given away the previous year $37 billion of his wealth, that's peanuts. As a stunt to start a discussion about the United States "war against the middle class", I think is brilliant.