Is Income Tax Socialist?

In discussions lately with friends about income taxes a comment was made that Income Tax was socialist in nature, so I decided to do some research on it. I found out that a Progressive Income Tax is indicated by Karl Marx (In his Communist Manifesto) as necessary in the march to Socialism/Communism. In my research, I found some other troubling similarities in Marx's Manifesto to certain events going on in the country today.

First... Some History

Early Federal Income Taxes
In order to help pay for its war effort in the American Civil War, the United States government imposed its first personal income tax, on August 5, 1861, as part of the Revenue Act of 1861 (3% of all incomes over US $800). This tax was repealed and replaced by another income tax in 1862.

In 1894, Democrats in Congress passed the Wilson-Gorman tariff, which imposed the first peacetime income tax. The rate was 2% on income over $4000, which meant fewer than 10% of households would pay any. The purpose of the income tax was to make up for revenue that would be lost by tariff reductions.

In 1895 the United States Supreme Court, in its ruling in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., held a tax based on receipts from the use of property to be unconstitutional. The Court held that taxes on rents from real estate, on interest income from personal property and other income from personal property (which includes dividend income) were treated as direct taxes on property, and therefore had to be apportioned. Since apportionment of income taxes is impractical, this had the effect of prohibiting a federal tax on income from property. The power to tax real and personal property, or that such was a direct tax, was not denied by the Constitution. Due to the political difficulties of taxing individual wages without taxing income from property, a federal income tax was impractical from the time of the Pollock decision until the time of ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment (below).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States

16th Amendment --
Status of Income Tax Clarified. Ratified 2/3/1913.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment amongthe several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

In 1895, in the Supreme Court case of Pollock v Farmer's Loan and Trust (157 U.S. 429), the Court disallowed a federal tax on income from real property. The tax was designed to be an indirect tax, which would mean that states need not contribute portions of a whole relative to its census figures. The Court, however, ruled that the tax was a direct tax and subject to apportionment. This was the last in a series of conflicting court decisions dating back to the Civil War. Between 1895 and 1909, when the amendment was passed by Congress, the Court began to back down on its position, as it became clear not only to accountants but to everyone that the solvency of the nation was in jeopardy. In a series of cases, the definition of "direct tax" was modified, bent, twisted, and coaxed to allow more taxation efforts that approached an income tax.

Finally, with the ratification of the 16th Amendment, any doubt was removed. The text of the Amendment makes it clear that though the categories of direct and indirect taxation still exist, any determination that income tax is a direct tax will be irrelevant, because taxes on incomes, from salary or from real estate, are explicitly to be treated as indirect. The Congress passed the Amendment on July 12, 1909, and it was ratified on February 3, 1913 (1,302 days).

http://www.usconstitution.net/constamnotes.html#Am16

As to why the income tax is socialist, and some other things that are very disconcerting, a progressive income tax is a step towards government control of the people (per Marx, below). It, of course, punishes the successful, therefore limiting their ability to grow wealth, create jobs and stimulate the economy. I am a strong proponent of the fair tax, which is a progressive national retail sales tax. Read about it here.

Summarized from Marx's The Communist Manifesto

We see then that the first step in the working class' revolution is to make the proletariat the ruling class. It will use its political power to seize all capital from the bourgeoisie and to centralize all instruments of production under the auspices of the State. Of course, in the beginning this will not be possible without "despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production." Probable steps in the revolution will include: the abolition of ownership of land (see kelo vs. supreme court) ; the institution of a heavy progressive or graduated income tax; the abolition of all inheritance rights (coming close here with the death tax); the confiscation of emigrants' and rebels' property, making all people liable to labor (card check?); State centralization of credit (gov't ownership of stock in banks); State centralization of communication and transportation ; State appropriation of factories, the gradual combination of agriculture and manufacturing industries, the elimination of the distinctions between town and country, and the establishment of free education for children.

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/communist/section3.rhtml

My examples of troubling events are highlighted and comments are in (italics). Note how many of these other things are under way.... be afraid... be very afraid.