Optimistic findings from the latest Intuit Payroll survey show 44 percent of small business owners are planning to hire new employees within the next 12 months, and 60 percent see their business growing.

Business owners could have their hopes dashed though when it comes to actually finding that talent. Nearly 90 percent of respondents agreed that health insurance benefits are important to find and retain good employees, but 58 percent don't offer coverage; 50 percent say they can't afford it. Seventy-five percent of business owners surveyed don't offer retirement benefits, two-thirds of whom say it's not their responsibility.

"There's a widening gap of expectations," Nora Denzel, senior vice president of Intuit's Employee Management Solutions Division, said in a press release. "On one hand, we as a society assume that health and retirement benefits are part of every employee's compensation package. And yet even as these small businesses gear up to hire, according to our results, small businesses are leery about what those benefits will cost."