Self-employed nanny

Will they want you to covers school holidays? If so you could ask for the pay to be pre-rota over the year for the extra hours over the holidays.

You can not be se for this family as it's regular work and they decide the hours and call the shots

I'm a se nanny but as I do temp emergancy and maturnity/night work

I decide the days and hours I can work and if I need a day off I take it obv giving them warning

Many employers want to cut down hours and this saving money esp if children at school but If you can't afford to do this and parents won't pay all day then you will need to look for another job

Many parents don't think what will happen if child is ill falls over and bangs head etc and need picking up asap. Yes it's rare and possibly be a few times a year but is their work flexible for them to drop everything and get child esp if work an hour or so away

I feel you are right to remain an employee.
Sounds as though the parents need to think about what it is they actually need. Many nannies, myself included, are paid at times when we have no children in our direct care. We do a few household chores, do some baking, go to the shops, go to the gym, whatever our employer lets us do.

This is not an unusual situation. I am sure many parents would like not to pay their nanny or childminder during times when the child is at pre-school but many parents still need someone on-call and providers are reluctant to have a drop in income during term time.

A nanny would not have much if anything in terms of allowable expenses.

Nannies being self employed has been discussed on here numerous times over the past years, please look through past message threads.

MrAnchovy (an accountant) has posted a lot about the subject in the past, use advanced search to search by user.

Tapestry12 - did you speak to HMRC Status Team?

Here is what advantages you get fri a tax perspective OP: www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/relief-self-emp.htm

It's due to the salary being low, it is below the Lower Earnings Limit for Class 1 NICs. HMRC: NIC Rates

Income Tax would apply depending on the taxcode. In this case it may be a BR code, thus income tax on £100 a week is £20, assuming they are a lower rate tax payer.

As I see it, Tapestry12 has three employers, all of whom are currently paying them via PAYE. Job3 is the one in question and the day of work and hours are still going to be fixed, so I can't see how it could be done self employed and I can't see any advantage to Tapestry12 in doing so, as their employer currently does their tax deductions, provides payslips etc.

According to HMRC website, your take home pay is what is left after PAYE and national insurance contributions. Do nannies not have to pay? Can't see any reference to this on HMRC website.

The hours work as long as you live very near them, not so good if anyone moves house.
Between 9.15 and 1pm, who is responsible for the child - are the parents working locally? I would wonder if you were really on-call during that time.

I pay about £10/month versus hundreds if employed!

But as an employee, they currently pay Zero Class 1 National Insurance.

They also don't pay any Class 2 National Insurance or Class 4 National Insurance (as those apply for Self Employed).

So I feel it does matter. Class 2 National Insurance may not be very much money and they could probably get an SSE (CF10 - Self Employed People with Small Earnings) but why show they go down the route of doing accounts, creating invoices, filling in HMRC forms, when they are doing perfectly fine now as an Employee. Where is the advantage to the Nanny?

The potential flaw in this is what if child is sick? Will parents cover your hours? It would be unreasonable to expect you to do it, especially if you arrange to do other things in that time.

Also OP do discuss what would happen if child was sick. Would you still get paid? What about when family go on holiday?

We paid full pay when we were away or sick but nanny did not get paid if she was sick or on holiday.

Always, I am self employed as well. You get paid more per hour so it all equals out in terms of holiday time taken. Who cares about NI contribution? I pay about £10/month versus hundreds if employed!

OP, do some proper research about benefits of SE.

Lets say you currently do 8am to 6pm (10 hours)

They now want Midday to 6pm (6 hours)

So if you wanted to agree to that, then yes I would renegotiate the salary.

So from £100 (£10x10), to £78 (£13*6).

It's a drop in income but gives you the morning off to do whatever you like (sleep, shopping, gym, get the car serviced).

So they currently employ you for 10 hours a week and do payroll.
They are proposing less hours which is reasonable from their side but you need to consider a few things:

• Does it mean later start to your day, or are they wanting you to come in the morning for a bit, then go home, then come back and do a few more hours? The latter is messy and adds to your cost of getting to/from work.

• If pre-school is closed, child ill, anything like that - will the parents do the pickup, care for child or are they expecting you to drop whatever you are doing and collect the child?

• Pre-school may be term-time only, what happens the rest of the year?

With regard to self employment, I can't see how changing the hours would make a change to employment status. The parents are still the ones in charge, telling you when to arrive, what to do.

Currently £10 gross, 10 hours = £100 per week. At that amount there is already NO Employers National Insurance. There is also no Employees NI. So any reduction in hours is a drop of just the amount paid to you. So you being an employee is not adding any cost to them other than payroll admin (which they could do themselves). You going self employed would not save you any NI as you are not currently paying any in this employment.

Do you have one or more other jobs which are also done under PAYE and those employers are not connected in any way with this 3rd employer?

I would keep things as they are. If they need a nanny then they need a nanny. If they want to use pre-school then they may need to rethink that. Even if they used a childminder they would often be charged for the time child was at pre-school.

It's actually more advantageous to go self employed.

for the employer! The nanny gets no paid leave and no protection and no NI contributions from that job.

It's actually more advantageous to go self employed. We only ever have SE nannies but then we are 10 hours per week. With SE it's quite straightforward. Declare yourself self employed, invoice family at end of the month. You'll pay considerably less in NI contributions. If you use this as your only job you can do your tax return yourself without an accountant.

Then you either need to accept less hours, give notice or negotiate something in between. Will entirely depend how much you want the job and how much they want you as to where you meet in the middle. Remember that one day nannies are not easy to find so in a way you have the upper hand, particularly if you are willing to do other stuff during the day.

Would you and they be happy to pay as normal for those hours? If so that's a good solution!

It's a toughy, my first inclination is to suggest looking for another position, but I understand one day a week is going to be very hard to find!

All you can do is speak to parents, be honest, I'm sure they will understand that you need to earn a wage, and with child at nursery, you will be at a loss. Perhaps they will be able to suggest a friend who may need a few hours childcare on that day?

What are your ratios like on other days? Could you consider taking on another family, and having a nanny share situation?