
Pretend you are a corn farmer, and it is time to sow your seeds.
It’s spring, and it’s time to plant seed corn for the yearly crop. The government shows up and offers you a proposition: You can pay taxes now at a meager rate on just the seed corn, or you can wait until the harvest and pay taxes on the full harvest, all of the kernels on all of the ears of corn on all of the stalks – and, oh, by the way, tax rates are going up before the harvest begins.
How much are they going up between now and the harvest?
Well, who knows, but probably a whole lot. Now, which sounds like a better deal? Upon hearing this scenario, almost everyone would choose to pay their taxes on just the...