“In 1894, Democrats in Congress passed the Wilson-Gorman tariff, which imposed the first peacetime income tax. The rate was 2% on income over $4,000, which meant fewer than 10% of households would pay any. ($4,000 was 19.3 times the 1894 nominal GDP per capita of $207.23; the corresponding income in 2021 is $1.3M.)“
Also, do you see those old tax rates? People love to make comparisons about how housing was affordable half a century ago, then check out the tax rates, that’s partly why.
We are at absurd tax rates and all because the government doesn’t make any effort to control their spending.
Rich individuals who are born into money will always find ways to escape these taxes, but your average person who built their wealth will not and in a decade when they hit the middle class, they will just contribute to extending the wealth gap.
Bringing up tax codes from before 1900 is just an absurd way to start a discussion about this because we've had over a century of development in monetary policy and taxation since then.
If the assertion is (for example) "taxation on the rich tends to end up including middle-class and maybe lower", why would an example from Rome or medieval Europe not be applicable?
Back to here, I don't think tax policy from the 1800s is especially relevant because the United States has gone through extensive reform with respect to monetary and economic policy since that time. The fed didn't exist and we were still on the gold standard. It's weird to use an obscure law nobody has every heard of to argue against taxing a class of wealthy Americans that are paying historically low tax rates.