If direct taxes upon the wages of labour have not always occasioned a proportionable rise in those wages, it is because they have generally occasioned a considerable fall in the demand for labour. The declension of industry, the decrease of employment for the poor, the diminuation of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country, have generally been the effect of such taxes.... Absurd and destructive as such taxes are, however, they take place in many countries.
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776.
But, but... I thought income taxes were Marxist