Income tax refers to a tax on individual incomes, not on churches, businesses, etc. And I thought "graduated" referred to the different rates for different levels of income.
Income tax refers to the entire system of taxation of income, IIRC
And that's true, the word 'graduated' infers a graduation by income, however, as I said, one of the reasons for its original introduction was not just to collect money, but also to induce 'social equality'. LAter other purposes were added as the system became more complex.
A VAT, excise tax, or import tariff doesn't lend itself to this much complexity.
