Washington Post Fact Checker, Boehner’s and McConnell’s New Claims on Millionaires and Small Businesses:

Over half of the people who would be taxed under this plan are, in fact, small-business people.” — House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Nov. 6, 2011

“The question is whether the federal government ought to be raising taxes on 300,000 small businesses in order to send money down to bail out states for whom firefighters and police work.” — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Oct. 23, 2011

The top Republicans in Congress appeared on CNN on different Sundays to make similar arguments against the Democrats’ push to raise taxes on people making more than $1 million — that it would adversely affect small businesses. …

The Office of Tax Analysis study, which focused on 2007 tax data, … makes for interesting reading for tax policy wonks. It certainly is a much more precise look at the taxes paid by small businesses. …

The key to McConnell’s statement is Table 14. That shows that there were 392,000 tax returns with adjusted gross income above $1 million. Of that, 273,000 returns were defined as “small business owners” under what the study calls a “broad definition.” Rounding up, that’s where McConnell gets his 300,000 figure. Table 14 also would support Boehner’s claim that over half the people taxed as millionaires are “small business people,” since it shows almost 70% of millionaire tax-filers meet the broad definition.

(Hat Tip: Walter Schwidetzky.)