Baby sitter - tax and NI

[Flora75]

I use a local baby sitter to help look after my baby while I work from home. She earns between £260 and £350 pounds a month for the work she does for me. She is also going to be starting work for a neighbour soon. She will be earning another £200 a month or so for that job.

She also does some other PAYE work.

I expect, at the most, she could earn around £6500 for her 'freelance' babysitting work for the financial year ending April 2014.

I have said that I will try to find out what we should do about tax and NI.

Could anyone help/advise?

Thanks,

Flora

It sounds like you are employing her - whatever the title babysitter/nanny/au pair/mothers help she is most likely meant to be employed.

She may get away with being self employed but she'd need confirmation from the HRMC for each job she is taking money for.

The easiest thing would be for her to be self employed. Wouldn't be a problem if she's doing it for several people. She'll need to register as self employed with the Inland Revenue. She'll then have to fill in a tax return every year. If she's using her personal allowance in her employment she'll need to pay 20% tax on her self employed earnings but this will all be calculated when filling in the tax return online which is very easy to do.

If she is not your nanny, but providing childcare to the public and you are therefore her client, does she not need to be registered by ofsted? If the hours are regular, say every Tuesday and Wednesday 3:00-7:00 then I think you may be her employer.

If it is ad hoc, irregular times and she can advise whether or not she wishes to take the work, then I think you might not need to be her employer.

I am no employment lawyer so you should obviously double check what I have typed.

Thanks for your thoughts. I have advised her to become self employed and ofsted registered and passed on all the relevant information.

is she caring in your house or hers -if its hers then she needs to register with ofsted as a childminder - if its the parents house she doesn't
either way I would suggest she needs to register as self employed - she will probably pay some NI but very litte tax