“Wages” for income tax purposes is a legal “term of art” that does not mean all that one is paid.
26 U.S. Code § 3402 - Income tax collected at source
(e) Included and excluded wages
If the remuneration paid by an employer to an employee for services performed during one-half or more of any payroll period of not more than 31 consecutive days constitutes wages, all the remuneration paid by such employer to such employee for such period shall be deemed to be wages; but if the remuneration paid by an employer to an employee for services performed during more than one-half of any such payroll period does not constitute wages, then none of the remuneration paid by such employer to such employee for such period shall be deemed to be wages.
“Wages” is limited to activities Article 1 of the Constitution allows Congress to tax, these are called “excise” taxable activities and the wages/gains/profits that are acquired by such activities are connected to the public treasury. If the activities you perform for your employer are in no way connected to the “public purse”, that is, the source of those wages are derived from your employers access to the use of the public purse, then your “remuneration” is not considered as “wages” for purposes of taxation.
And how was the method for funding the government prior to the 16th amendment defective?