Yesterday, Senate Republicans announced their proposed tax reform measures.

Instead of eliminating the inheritance tax – like the House version does – the Senate proposal would increase the exemption by $5 million per person. And instead of cutting business taxes right away, the cuts wouldn’t happen until 2019.

We never met a tax cut we didn’t like. But we never met anything quite like the latest proposals from Republicans…

Rich Corpses

We’ve been writing about the future. We’ve seen that technology doesn’t always make things better.

As we pointed out yesterday, even rising GDP is not necessarily a good thing. (On the other hand, falling GDP is usually not so great either… look at Venezuela!)

And although we never know for sure how it will go, there are ways to almost guarantee that the future will stink: Tell your wife she’s getting fatter. Or go deeper into debt.

No one knows which… if any… of these new tax proposals will pass. But some of them are very attractive – to us.

By increasing the exemption, the Senate version of the tax plan would save each rich person $4 million on estate taxes alone. The House version would save even more.

Eliminating the alternative minimum tax – a baseline tax rate for certain individuals and businesses – lowering the corporate rate, and allowing a 25% rate for “pass-through” businesses – all would be welcome.

The inheritance (or death) tax is especially menacing for a small business owner. You pay a 40% tax on everything you leave your children in excess of a $5 million exemption.

The tax only really affects rich corpses.