1943, FDR changed the collection process, creating “withholding from wages and salaries.” Withholding was collected from payrolls before it was even due to be paid by the taxpayer, shifting the tax from its original design as a tax on the wealthy to the masses.
We Called it “ The Victory TAX”
also see “Taxes for revenue are obsolete”
There was a federal income tax during the Civil War.
A federal income tax was impractical in the years prior to 1913 because the rich were mainly in large Northeastern cities and there was no way the people in a poor state like Alabama could pay the same average amount as the citizens of New York State.
The tariff wasn’t producing the desired amount of revenue because US industry was world beating a century ago.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
Low-information rich people probably do not understand the following. Corrupt federal lawmakers essentially laugh all the way to the bank to deposit the bribes that rich people give them to put loopholes in appropriations bills that benefit the rich, rich people clueless to the idea that the feds don’t have the Section 8 authority to make prabably most of appropriations bills that they do in the first place.