"COMMENTS: Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago"
Perhaps a bit of hyperbole.
History (from Wikipedia)
Main article: Taxation history of the United States
Tariffs were the largest source of federal revenue from the 1790s to the eve of World War I, until they were surpassed by income taxes.[citation needed]
The first federal statutes imposing the legal obligation to pay a federal income tax were adopted by Congress in 1861 and 1862 to pay for the Civil War. The 1862 law levied a 3% tax on incomes above $800, rising to 5% for incomes above $10,000. Rates were raised in 1864. This income tax was repealed in 1872, but a new income tax statute was enacted as part of the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act in 1894.[1]
The United States Constitution specified Congress could impose a direct tax only if it was apportioned among the states according to each state's census population.[2] In its 1895 decision the Supreme Court held in the case of Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. that a tax on income from property (a tax on interest, dividends or rent) was a direct tax under the Constitution, and so had to be apportioned.
The apportionment requirement made income taxes on property practically impossible, and Congress did not want to limit the income tax solely to a tax on wages. Therefore, in 1909 Congress proposed the Sixteenth Amendment, which became part of the Constitution in 1913 when it was ratified by the required number of states. The Amendment modified the requirement for apportionment of direct taxes by exempting all income taxes—whether considered direct or indirect—from the apportionment requirement.
Still no fun.
Les