Sure, and that's why an "excise tax on wages" was put in place during the Civil War some 50 years before the 16th Amendment.
The 16th simply removed the income tax from apportionment. The Supreme Court ruled shortly after the 16th went into being that the amendment gave them no new taxing power.
You may want to read up on this. Its not as cut and dried as anyone thinks.
Keep in mind, the Congress can levy any "direct tax" they want. They just have to send it out for apportionment as opposed to collecting from the individual directly. The tax still stands.
A lot of what the anti-Federalists were saying is now coming true.
I have read up on it. I have an LLM in tax. You’re right that a “direct tax” can be imposed so long as there is apportionment. But apportionment is lethal for the tax in practice, so Congress’s authority to levy direct taxes was rendered too cumbersome to actually implement, and this by express design of the Founders. Roberts knew he had to deal with the issue, so he simply said that a “tax” that places every American into a direct relationship with the IRS is not a “direct” tax in clear contradiction to the simple and accepted definition of “direct” tax. The man is a liar.