We don't have representation.
The states, immediately upon achieving their independence, all imposed taxes-- very substantial ones in some states; and as soon as the U.S> Constitution was ratified, the federal government started levying and collecting taxes.
Misdirection. The federal government didn't dare levy a direct tax on the income of average folk until the Founders, and their children, were long dead and in their graves.
As for the states, only taxes that were palatable to the Founders were levied. My state didn't dare lay an income tax until the 1960s.
The federal government didn't dare levy a direct tax on the income of average folk until the Founders
Interestingly Congress had considered a federal income tax during the war of 1812 and would very likely have enacted it had that war not ended when it did.
http://www.tax.org/Museum/1777-1815.htm
1815 Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Dallas contemplated the enactment of an income tax to raise up to $3 million dollars for the war effort. He modeled his idea after the income tax Britain adopted in 1799 to finance the Napoleonic Wars. Dallas assumed that such an income tax constituted an indirect tax, and would not require apportionment. The House Ways and Means Committee responded lukewarmly to the proposal, and the war ended before any income tax could be enacted.
Strickly speaking Congress was quite willing to do so, but only under conditions that could make it politically feasible, like the Civil War, when the first income tax acually did take effect and was infact extended several years beyond that war until the electorate turned against it.
Interesting little ditties in history, when one goes looking.