Direct taxes paid to the federal government are subject to apportionment in the US constitution. Therefore, for an income tax to be paid, it would have to be ap

Direct taxes paid to the federal government are subject to apportionment in the US constitution. Therefore, for an income tax to be paid, it would have to be apportioned, meaning that states would have to pay a total amount equivalent to their proportion of the population. If NY has 10% of the total population, 10% of income taxes would need to be paid from NY. Similarly if TX only has 2% of the population, the tax would need 2% of its funding from TX. If everyone paid the same amount, this would be easy. But if you wanted to only tax millionaires, for example, that means that the millionaires in NY would be responsible for 10% of the total tax paid while those in TX would be responsible for 2%. Now consider that there are 1000 millionaires in NY but only 2 in TX. Each NY millionaire would be required to pay (.1)(1/1000)=.0001 of the total tax bill while each millionaire in TX would be required to pay (.02)(1/2)=.01. Obviously those in TX would never agree to such a tax. The goal with this is debated, but I believe it was done specifically to make passing direct taxes near impossible. Indirect taxes, such as excise taxes, are preferable since people only pay them if they want to. They can always elect to not purchase a good or service to avoid the tax. Additionally, it allows a much more progressive system than income taxes, since you can impose severe luxury taxes based on consumption only. The 16A came along and changed this by explicitly exempting income from the apportionment requirements. Likely this was one of the major catalysts in the destruction of the American experiment.