During Wednesday night's presidential debate, President Barack Obama said that under Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's tax plan, Donald Trump, the real estate and reality TV billionaire, would qualify as a small business.
"Under Gov. Romney’s definition, Donald Trump is a small business," Obama said. "I know Donald Trump doesn’t like to think of himself as small anything."
This is true. Romney, following Republican tax messaging going back several years, classifies anyone recognizing business income on their individual tax returns as a "small business" -- including people like Donald Trump, who recognize business income from book sales and speaking fees.
For years, GOP leaders have insisted that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire would hurt small business. On Wednesday night, Romney cited statistics from the National Federation of Independent Business, the most Republican-leaning of the nation's small business organizations. While the NFIB is opposed to letting the Bush tax cuts expire, many other small business owners support the expiration.
In fact, just 3 percent of all small businesses would be affected by Obama's plan to let the Bush tax cuts expire for individuals earning $250,000 a year or more, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
Trump, for his part, responded positively to being mentioned by the president.
"It is a great honor to be representing free enterprise in this Country as a tremendous job creator," Trump told HuffPost Small Business in an email. "I greatly appreciate being mentioned by the President and Governor Romney on such an important event."
Earlier, Trump had tweeted that he postponed a trip to Europe so he could watch the debate.
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