Progressive income taxation is a key plank of the Communist Manifesto.
“In 1894...The federal income tax was strongly favored in the South, and it was moderately supported in the eastern North Central states, but it was strongly opposed in the Far West and the Northeastern States (with the exception of New Jersey).”
“On July 12, 1909, the resolution proposing the Sixteenth Amendment was passed by the Congress and was submitted to the state legislatures. Support for the income tax was strongest in the western and southern states and opposition was strongest in the northeastern states. Supporters of the income tax believed that it would be a much better method of gathering revenue than tariffs, which were the primary source of revenue at the time. From well before 1894, Democrats, Progressives, Populists and other left-oriented parties argued that tariffs disproportionately affected the poor, interfered with prices, were unpredictable, and were an intrinsically limited source of revenue.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
In 1913, the leftists got their way. You’ve got to pay.
My hope is to have the ratification votes of some states declared to be equal protection violations of Amendment XIV.
One year after ratification, World War I broke out in Europe.
That war made it impractical to export goods in large quantities at lower tariffs to the US.
The income tax deal for cheap goods backfired badly.
The left you observe today didn't exist in 1913. Who, in 1913, would object to a 1% tax on income over $20,000 when the average income was less than $1,000 a year?