Factcheck.org and Politifact.com take issue with the assessment that McCain tries to portray Obama like other Democrats as “Tax and Spend Liberals,” pointing out that many of the McCain campaign’s claims about Obama’s tax initiatives are false or misleading.

In fact, even the conservative magazine National Review recently acknowledged that Obama’s plan offers more tax relief for middle class families than McCain’s. And even more recently Karl Rove and FoxNews themselves have caught on to McCains act.

Recent McCain campaign emails specifically target Obama’s tax plan for small businesses. The campaign has repeatedly claimed that Obama’s tax policies would raise taxes on 23 million small businesses, but, as Factcheck.org points out, that is simply not true. The Obama plan actually provides tax relief to small businesses in the form of a proposed capital gains tax exemption and tax credits to help cover the cost of employee health plans.

During a June interview with the Wall Street Journal, Obama stated he will exempt start-up small businesses from capital gains taxes in order to encourage small business development, saying, “Companies that are starting off…should be allowed to accumulate
capital, reinvest profits, if there are any, to the point that they
stabilize.”

And the Obama campaign’s official small business plan, available on the campaign website, states:

Barack Obama will reduce the burden on small businesses in our economy by offering a new Small Business Health Tax Credit to help small businesses provide quality health care to their employees. The Obama Small Business Health Tax Credit will provide a refundable credit of up to 50 percent on premiums paid by small businesses on behalf of their employees.

Provide Tax Relief for Small Businesses and Start Up Companies: Barack Obama will eliminate all capital gains taxes on start-up and small businesses to encourage innovation and job creation. Obama will also support small business owners by providing a $500 “Making Work Pay”tax credit to almost every worker in America. Self-employed small business owners pay both the employee and the employer side of the payroll tax, and this measure will reduce the burdens of this double taxation.

Create a National Network of Public-Private Business Incubators: Barack Obama will support entrepreneurship and spur job growth by creating a national network of public-private business incubators. Business incubators facilitate the critical work of entrepreneurs in creating start-up companies. Obama will invest $250 million per year to increase the number and size of incubators in disadvantaged communities throughout the country.

Factcheck.org concludes that under Obama’s small business tax policies, in terms of overall tax rates, “The vast majority would see no change, and many would get a cut.”

In addition to a small-business-friendly tax plan, Obama has put forth a number of other policy proposals to encourage small business growth.

Obama plans to allow small businesses to participate in a cooperative National Health Exchange to give them the same collective bargaining power in negotiations with health insurance companies that larger corporations currently enjoy. He also proposes a federal health care re-insurance program that would protect small businesses against catastrophic losses related to employee health care coverage.

Obama outlines an expansion of the Small Business Administration loan program that would make it easier for start-up small business entrepreneurs, particularly women and minorities, to access capital for a new business, and imagines a national network of public-private business incubators that would educate and support new business owners to foster greater small business success.

To support women in business, Obama plans to enforce the guidelines set down by Congress during the Clinton Administration under the Women-Owned Business Federal Contract Assistance Program, which state that the federal government should aim to award 5% of yearly contract funds to women-owned small businesses. Currently, the federal government is failing to meet even that incredibly conservative benchmark. (Yes, you read that correctly. The federal government is failing to award even 5% of its contracts to women-owned small businesses.)

Obama’s small business proposals also include providing disaster relief funds to small businesses in the event of a major natural disaster, improving internet access in rural areas that lack communications infrastructure, to help small rural businesses compete with urban businesses on the web, and offering technical support and training to rural business owners.

You can read about many of Obama’s small business proposals in this official campaign document.

Thanks to MOMocrats for this article.

see also: Fact Check: Did Barack Obama Vote 94 Times for Higher Taxes?

“The effort to convince voters that Sen. Barack Obama would support higher taxes is a central part of Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign. McCain and the Republican National Committee have repeatedly cited 94 alleged votes by Obama to bolster their argument. Factcheck.org, a non-partisan project of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, pieced through records to determine just what these 94 votes were.” rest at article.

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