The Government has been able to hide the "wage tax," tax because the law is diabolically written to allow for a "credit" for such wage taxes paid against the income taxes shown on your tax return.  When the credit is taken, it appears that the taxpayer got a "credit" for income taxes previously paid against the income taxes reported on their tax return.  But this is not the case.

Two separate taxes are involved here, not one - as the American public has been fraudulently lead to believe. The Government initiates the deception by falsely labeling the Chapter that establishes the wage tax as the "COLLECTION OF INCOME TAX AT SOURCE,"  while captioning the actual statute that imposes the tax as "Income tax collected at source".  Obviously, if the imposition of a wage tax were legal, the Government would not have resorted to such deception to hide the nature of the tax.

The Government felt compelled to create the "wage tax" (and hide it) because of WWII.  During that war the Government, for the first time, sought to collect income taxes from America's working, middle class.  Up until then, only wealthy Americans paid income taxes, and they did so by making a lump sum payment (or they could arrange for three lump sum payments) by March 15th of the year following that taxable year - i.e. 1938 income taxes were paid in 1939. However, believing that America's working class would not have the money to pay their income taxes in the subsequent year, the Government sought to collect income taxes from them in advance - on a "pay-as-you-go" basis.  However, this presented the Government with a problem.

By law income taxes are collected on the basis of assessments, which are made only after returns are filed.  Thus, there was no legal way the Federal government could compel the payment of income taxes before returns were filed and assessments made.  Therefore a "pay-as-you-go" income tax was out of the question.  So the government hit upon another idea which, for various reasons, was slightly unconstitutional.  (But, there was a war going on, remember?)  To solve the problem, Congress created a new tax, but forgot to tell the American public about it.  Instead they claimed  that the new so called "Victory Tax,"  constituted  a "pay-as-you-go" income tax, which would only last for the duration of  WW II.  What saved the wage tax from being blatantly unconstitutional (since a direct tax on wages violates the apportionment provisions of the Constitution) was the ability of wage earners to get a refund of all the "wage taxes" they paid, as is currently provided in Code Section 31(a).