Cash flow and job tax credits

In my blog on Monday, I made the following observation about the job tax credits within the President’s proposed American Jobs Act.

Tax credits are taken when tax returns are prepared, not at the time of hiring.  If a business doesn’t have the capital to do the initial hiring, the tax credit months later won’t do them any good.

Therefore, small business must have access to lines of credit and loans for the job-creating tax credits to succeed.  We must step up our efforts to prod financial institutions to provide access to capital for small businesses qualifying for these tax credits.

Apparently I am not the only one to have indicated concern about the tax credits not being available but only once a year.  Cash flow for small business is always a major issue.  Getting a financial incentive later doesn’t help you if you can’t afford to hire today. 

Yesterday Karen Mills, the head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, was reported by the North Carolina News Network to have heard the same concern when she talked to small businesses.

So we said to them what's the most important thing you need and they said a tax credit that comes into my hand week by week, month by month, I don't want to wait until the end of the year, I have more cash so I can go out and market more, get more business so I can go out and hire that next person

I am trying to track down the story on this.  Is the Administration intending to allow small businesses to take the proposed tax credits for hiring the unemployed throughout the year? 

This is a critically important issue.  If the answer is yes, the jobs tax credits will be much more effective in creating jobs.  If not, then it’s back to my comments from Monday.

I’ll let you know.