Help me with part time work legalities please

[fourandahalfkids]

I haven't worked in 11 years. I wanted to stay at home and be with my children while they were small. Ds is now going into full time school and I want to ger back out there.

I'm starting really small to start off with to try and regain some confidence. I have secured a lunchtime supervisor job that will get me approx £130 a month.
Yesterday I had an interview as a home help for a vunerable lady, I wont find out until monday but the interview went really well. It's 2 hours a week to begin withbut with the distinct possibilty of going to 4 hours or maybe more. This would get me an extra £16-£32 per week. Small fry really but every little helps.

My question is this - At the interview I was told that the lady would pay me by cheque each week and I would sign a counter slip. However, she would not be responsible for tax or N.I contributions. So this to me would appear to be cash in hand. What therefore are my responsibilities re tax and N.I? My total yearly earnings would only be about £3000 but dh earns £20,000, so does that make a difference?
Also is there anything else I would need to think about?

I'm sorry if these sound like really simple questions- it's juat been such a long time since i've been out there and I want to make sure I do everything the right way.
Thank you

[fourandahalfkids]

I'm sorry for the mistakes- i'm typing on my phone without my glasses on and with children running about me so perhaps not the best time to post- opps.

[DunderMifflin]

Someone will come along with more info but I think you need to register as self-employed to be legit - if you're a sole trader you have to complete an annual tax return but I doubt you'd have to pay anything as you'd be under the threshold. You may want to make NI contributions though - check out the hmrc website or even phone them as they are usually very helpful with advice.

[nextphase]

Is it a personal job ie not through a agency?
In which case I can see why she won't sort out the Tax / NI - I wouldn't sort it out for my cleaning lady, for example.
Your Tax / NI is compleatly separate to DH's, but tax credits etc may be affected.
You can earn nearly £10,000 per year before you need to pay tax, and Just over £100/week before you need to pay NI, so you shouldn't need to pay either. When does child benefit stop giving you the current equivalent to home responsibilities protection? 5 or 12??? If that drops out you may wish to pay NI to protect your state pension.
I don't know how you declare the income tho?

[fourandahalfkids]

Dunder - thank you, the self employed bit was what Iwas worrying about. It seems a lot of faff for a couple of hours a week.
Next - yes it is personal and I wouldn't expect her to sort it out the NI contributions just wasn't sure what I needed to do with respect to that. Thank you for clearing up the tax issue aswell.
I will need to look into the child benefit protection as I don't know.
I think I will give hmrc a ring- thanku
I have been online and checked out the benefits counter and I will lose some but that's not a problem.

[riverside1989]

So the thing that shouts out to me about your email is that you don't know and that isn't right.
If you are self employed (and that can be a difficult status to convince the tax man you are btw) then you need to be properly set up as self employed. If you are working for someone else (lets define working here as delivering a service for which you get paid) and there is an expectation on the part of the person who hired you that you arrive on set days for set periods and you cannot simply not come in one day or send a substitute person - then you are not self employed.
I own a childcare agency so I can speak with confidence about that bit - people who work through our agency (in schools and nurseries) have agreed that the agency manage their tax and national insurance therefore the money they receive in their wage packet has already had deductions made and the agency have a file and relationship connected to the inland revenue to ensure the workers payments are being sent to the inland revenue. People introduced as Nannies to family homes have specific conversations with the families to confirm if (and they need to satisfy their employer the family) they are self employed or and this is the vast majority are the employees of the family.
Soooooo the thing that shouts out to me about your email is that you don't know and that isn't right. Therefore I would suggest two simple things ask a series of explicit questions to the person who is paying you preceeded by phoning ACAS's free helpline they are really helpful and you can chat to them about your individual situation. Our training company is always looking for new ideas for sessions to teach so thank you! we will add one on this topic for our lunch and learn sessions //www.childcareblog.co.uk

.... extra thought if the 'employer' avoids the conversation or won't answer properly be warey this is a very reasonable thing to ask