Tax question - help!

[RachelW76]

A tax question. I am in the process of recruiting a Mother's Help who will pick my child up from nursery and bring him home and be with him for a short time until I get home. This will be two days a week for an hour and a half each time, so a total of 3 hours work a week! Will I be this person's employer and therefore needing to pay tax, draw up a contract etc, or does it count as babysitting?

It would technically be employment as it's a regular arrangement but whether you need to do PAYE and whether there are tax liabilities depends on how much you pay them and whether they have another job. If it's their only job you're fine unless you're paying £50+/hour. The problem, I suspect, is that unless it's a student they'll almost certainly have another job.

This doesn't need to impact in the cost for you as you won't be liable for employers' NICs. As long as you agree a gross salary and can get to grips with the HMRC software it won't cost any more than if they didn't have another job.

I would phone HMRC's New Employer Helpline (not the general help line) and explain the situation. If they agree it would be a waste of everyone's time and money for you to register as an employer, make sure you take a note of the conversation including who you spoke to.