Do we need a nanny tax company and if so please can someone recommend one?

[goingbacktowork]

Hi - we are about to employ a nanny. We expect her hours may vary a bit each week. Do we need a nanny tax agency or is it so simple to do that we do not? I suppose at the least they produce an actual wage slip for the nanny (weekly?monthly?).

Please can somone suggest a good company to use? Do you need to send them weekly details i.e. does nanny get paid monthly or weekly? And if nanny expects to get paid weekly do you have a good guess what she should get weekly and pay her and almost make a balancing payment once the monthly statement arrives?

Many thanks.

If you have agreed a Gross salary (hope you have) then you can do payroll yourself.

My boss and I and happy with www.payefornannies.co.uk, been using them for over 3 years now.

You can do it yourself, but for the cost of a service like the one Nick mentioned it is not worth it IMHO - the free HMRC service is not very good and doesn't produce payslips (which are a legal requirement), a decent payroll program will cost you £60 a year although an online service like MyPAYE is cheaper.

You can choose weekly or monthly (some agents may charge more for weekly) - obviously if you want to change the amount she is paid you have to tell them. For overtime etc. this is usually done a week/month in arrears i.e. this week she is paid her normal wage plus overtime for last week which you sent to the agent on Monday. Check with the agent how it will work with them.

Making weekly payments in advance of a monthly payslip is not allowed.

Just to clarify then if we pay her weekly ten she will need weekly payslips? Thanks

Yes. You either pay weekly and do weekly payslips, or pay monthly and do monthly payslips.
A payroll company will do either but you need to tell them at the start how you want to do it.

Are hours each week likely to change by much? Would montly hours be more similar month to month?

If doing things yourself, do montly pay, less payroll runs!

I do it myself using this payroll site www.thepayrollsite.co.uk. Its very easy. They do the first month free so you can see if its okay for you. You need to regsiter as an employer with HMRC, which again is very straighforward. Issue the nanny with a contract which states her gross monthly salary and a gross monthly overtime rate, or you can just put in a gross hourly salary.

The Payroll Site costs over £80 a year which doesn't seem like good value for one employee to me - if you want a no-frills payroll calculation solution then MyPAYE is only £12 a year, or for £115 a year you can have a full sevice with support and advice.

www.nannytax.co.uk