Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, who has focused his campaign strategy on the New Hampshire primary, received top marks in a scorecard rating the tax plans offered by each of the Republican candidates.

The Tax Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, said Huntsman’s plan rated a B+ grade for its “wipe the slate clean” approach to tax expenditures, which “knocks out preferential taxation in one fell swoop,” according to the report, which will be released today.

“Gov. Huntsman is running on his consistent, conservative record that took Utah to number one in the nation in job creation. He has put forth the most pro-growth tax plan in the field, and it is based on his experience passing the largest tax cut in Utah history,” campaign spokesman Michael Levoff said when asked about the report card.

Huntsman, who moved his campaign headquarters to New Hampshire, has already been lauded by The Wall Street Journal and several other publications and think tanks for his tax plan.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry received a B for his optional 20 percent flat tax on individuals and proposal for a 20 percent tax rate on corporations. Businessman Herman Cain, who was included in the report card even though he’s dropped out of the race, received a B- for his 9-9-9 plan for flat taxes on individuals, businesses and sales. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas also received a B- for his plan to cut corporate taxes to 15 percent and eliminate the estate tax and taxes on capital gains and dividends.

Rounding out the report card were former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, with a C+, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota with a C, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with a C- and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania with a D+.

The report said the Santorum plan falls short partly because it fails to eliminate complexity in the tax code, fails to address the special-interest provisions and preferential rates in the code and, unlike other candidates’ plans, continues the practice of worldwide taxation of U.S. corporate income. Santorum’s proposal to eliminating taxes on manufacturers amounts to “blatantly adding a targeted tax preference to the code.”

The Tax Foundation said its report card is not an endorsement of any candidate. According to the report, it is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank founded in 1937 to educate the public on tax policy. It has, however, been criticized by other tax policy think tanks and some liberal economists, including Nobel Prize-winning economist and columnist Paul Krugman of The New York Times, as being unreliable.

The report does caution that it took some liberty when analyzing each candidate’s tax plan. “We also took into account not only the specified ideal of each plan, but the practical implementation as we see it,” the report said. “This introduces an unfortunate amount of speculation and subjectivity on our part, particularly for the more radically unprecedented proposals. However, we believe this is the right approach, since the history of taxation tells us that the law and the practice are often two very different things.”