Does anyone know about an Executive Order by FDR to make $25k the max...

[JanMichael]

...income by having a 100% tax over that amount?

I'm tired of slogging through the rightwing sites claiming it. Does anyone know anything concrete about it?

A Maximum Income? Wouldn't that pretty much make him a...I won't say it, but y'all know what I'm refering to...

EDIT! Is it completely bogus? Sounds like it to me.

[Dudley_DUright]

1. I have not looked it up, but I highly doubt it is true

Invoking a tax is not something that a president could legally do by executive order. Sounds like a freeper urban legend to me.

[Davis_X_Machina]

2. The top marginal rate on incomes...

...during the war was 94%, but I don't think it kicked in at anything like $25k.

Link (PDF file)

Good charts here -- Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (PDF file)

And were tax rates ever set by executive order as opposed to legislation? Sounds unlikely..

[SoCalDem]

3. Sounds like a Rush-ism to me

:)

[Eric J in MN]

4. Ask the people claiming FDR did that for proof (nt)

nt

[Davis_X_Machina]

5. Debate Rule #1...

...he who asserts must prove.

Honored more in the breach than in the observance, unfortunately.

[JanMichael]

7. Honestly? I don't recall where I heard it today!

Either on the radio or here?:shrug:

Normally I'd ask for proof.

[ajacobson]

6. Pure refried bullshit--lying liers lying again

Just googled this up...

The Revenue Act of 1932 was the first tax law passed during the Great Depression (Revenue Acts, June 6, 1932, ch. 209, 47 Stat. 169). It increased the individual maximum rate from 25 to 63 percent, and reduced personal exemptions from $1,500 to $1,000 for single persons, and from $3,500 to $2,500 for married couples. The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA), part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, imposed a five percent excise tax on dividend receipts, imposed a capital stock tax and an excess profits tax, and suspended all deductions for losses (June 16, 1933, ch. 90, 48 Stat. 195). The repeal in 1933 of the Eighteenth Amendment, which had prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol, brought in an estimated $90 million in new liquor taxes in 1934. The Social Security Act of 1935 provided for a wage tax, half to be paid by the employee and half by the employer, to establish a federal retirement fund (Old Age Pension Act, Aug. 14, 1935, ch. 531, 49 Stat. 620).

The Wealth Tax Act, also known as the Revenue Act of 1935, increased the maximum tax rate to 79 percent, the Revenue Acts of 1940 and 1941 increased it to 81 percent, the Revenue Act of 1942 raised it to 88 percent, and the Individual Income Tax Act of 1944 raised the individual maximum rate to 94 percent.

http://www.wld.com/conbus/weal/winctax1.htm

BTW - this 100% taxation fantasy mentions that FDR issued an Executive Order mandating this. This is not constitutionally possible. Only Congress has the power to tax on the Federal level.

Here's what he actually said:
At the same time, while the number of individual Americans affected is small, discrepancies between low personal incomes and very high personal incomes should be lessened; and I therefore believe that in time of this grave national danger, when all excess income should go to win the war, no American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year. It is indefensible that those who enjoy large incomes from State and local securities should be immune from taxation while we are at war. Interest on such securities should be subject at least to surtaxes.

I earnestly hope that the Congress will pass a new tax bill at the earliest moment possible. Such action is imperative in the comprehensive all-out effort to keep the cost of living down-and time is of the essence.

(Message to Congress on an Economic Stabilization Program April 27, 1942)

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/site/docs/pppus.php?admin=032&year=1942&id=48

[JanMichael]

8. There you go, thanks!

I got sick of looking at all of the bullshit sites out there.

That said FDR was hoping for a Levelling which is something I'd say we need today too.

[ajacobson]

10. It looks like most of the "100%" refs came from

a document put out by the Mackinaw Center in Michigan. I'm familiar with them. They are ultra-right wing, "the best government is no government" types. They pretty much called the tune here during the Engler administration.

FDR's statement was concerning funding the U.S. war effort in World War II. They leave that out. In any case, their story is wrong.

On edit: more ranting on this--
Back in those days, governments actually raised taxes to pay for wars and raised debt and controlled prices and wages and did everything they needed to do to beat the Axis. It's only in more recent days that the so-called leaders in Washington think that they can hold a war and cut taxes simply by mortgaging the country and dumping the problem on our children. How messed up is that?

[oasis]

9. It's Reagan vs. FDR time in rightwing enclaves. Dittoheads have the dime

on their mind.

[ldoolin]

11. There was no such executive order from FDR

It's completely bogus.

The only thing remotely resembling it during the 1930s was Senator Huey Long's Share The Wealth proposal which would have limited personal incomes to something like $1,000,000 a year - in 1935 dollars - and taxed everything over that at 100%. FDR considered Huey Long's proposals reckless and unworkable and wanted nothing to do with them. Long was assassinated in 1935 before his proposal ever got any kind of serious hearing in Congress.

If the Freepslugs are now claiming that FDR instituted a 100% tax on incomes over $25,000, (1/40th of Huey Long's proposed maximum income!), they are full of it. Or more likely, deliberately lying.

Freepslugs being full of it. There's a concept.