The swelling budget deficit makes future tax increases likely, our columnist says, even if taxes are going down now. Hedge your bets with a concept from investing — diversification.

Investors must deal with uncertainty every day. Without knowing what the markets will bring, they try to get good returns without bearing excessive risk.

The classic solution is diversification — holding a broad array of global stocks and bonds. By spreading your risk, you obtain some protection against a disaster in any single holding. Even through the chaos in the markets brought about by President Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs, well-diversified portfolios have been shielded from the wildest swings in the markets.

This survival strategy makes sense in thinking about your taxes, too.

Every taxpayer must deal with at least two kinds of uncertainty. First, you don’t know exactly what your income will be in the future. And far more irksome, you don’t know what the tax