HOLLAND, Ohio — It turns out "Joe the plumber," the unexpected focus of Wednesday night's presidential debate, has a different first name and no plumber's license, owes back taxes to the state of Ohio and would likely get a tax cut under Democrat Barack Obama's plan.

As details emerged yesterday about the man Republican John McCain said would pay higher taxes under Obama's plan, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, 34, retreated inside his house after being besieged by interviewers.

Wurzelbacher lives in a working-class neighborhood outside Toledo, where his street was crowded yesterday with 30 journalists from as far away as Italy and four satellite TV trucks.

Wurzelbacher conducted a round of interviews on morning news shows and with reporters in his driveway before he went into his house, saying he was through talking.

More details about Wurzelbacher emerged throughout the day yesterday. Ohio records show he has a lien on his home from January 2007 for failing to pay $1,182.98 in state income taxes. The lien has not been settled.

He also had to settle a lien for $1,261.37 that was placed in July 2007 by a hospital for outstanding bills. It was lifted last October after the debt was satisfied.

Wurzelbacher said yesterday that he isn't a licensed plumber but works with a plumber.

The experience left him dazed, he said: "I'm kind of like Britney Spears having a headache. Everybody wants to know about it."

Wurzelbacher was thrust into the spotlight after he chatted with Obama during a campaign event on Sunday. He told Obama he objected to the candidate's plan to raise federal taxes on couples earning more than $250,000.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said the campaign saw no reason to check out Wurzelbacher's situation before McCain brought him up in the debate.

Wurzelbacher told The Associated Press he does not make more than $200,000 a year — the threshold for an individual getting a federal income tax increase under Obama's plan. Wurzelbacher also told The (Toledo) Blade newspaper that he has no specific plan to buy the two-man plumbing business where he works but has talked generally with owner Al Newell about someday taking it over.

"It is utterly bizarre that McCain chose this guy as the poster child, because this guy would get a tax cut under Obama, and wouldn't under McCain," says William Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center, which has analyzed both Obama's and McCain's tax plans.

The center is run jointly by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, two liberal Washington think tanks.