The 20 billion in tax cuts for homebuyers and businesses to help create jobs and revive a sluggish housing market is about to be signed into law today. The legislation, which provides up to 20 weeks in additional pay to more than 1 million people who have lost or are in danger of losing jobless aid, extends until spring a tax credit of up to $8,000 for first-time home buyers and adds smaller credits ($6,500) for some who owns a home.
Along with the homebuyer credit, the package contains another $10 billion tax break that allows companies that suffered during the last two years to use recent losses to reclaim taxes paid in the previous five years, when times were good.
This is huge news and good news for recruiters too.
Your candidates who have been on the fence because of a depressed housing market can now sell their homes (if they’ve owned them for more than five years) to buy another one and reap a $6,500 tax credit. A tax credit is a big deal. It’s money you don’t pay in the form of taxes, so it’s like earning three times that amount and paying no tax on it (if you’re in a 35% tax bracket).
The pre-existing $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers extension is good, too because, believe it or not, the general public is slow on the uptake and people are only now beginning to realize what a big deal that is. It has another several months to become a steady part of realtor marketing plans (it has only really been circulating even on their part for the last two months or so; how many “$8,000 Tax Credit” signs have you seen riding atop their “For Sale” signs in your neighborhood?).
If you haven’t been touting that as one of the “benefits” to your new job offering, now is the time to make it a part of your campaign too.
There’s $10 billion in tax breaks in that package that are big too. It’s supposed to be for small businesses that have shown losses in 2008 and 2009 to be able to recoup some of the taxes they paid in the previous five years. Will your recruiting company be counted in this bunch? I wouldn’t doubt if many of our small businesses qualify for this. 2008 seems kind of early for this, to me, so I’m going to be watching for an expansion/extension of this to include later years — maybe 2010, 2011, and 2012! Wouldn’t that be something?
Now, on a sobering note, and it’s a question I know some of you are thinking:
Where’s this money going to come from?
