Hiring a mother's help - help!

[Zorra]

I work from home, and have been looking for someone to help me out with DD (6 months) and occasionally school run for my 4 year old (about ten minutes away). I'm looking for someone to do 8-2 three days per week; I'll be at home, in the office upstairs and my son will be at school.

Can I write up a basic contract with them, stating that they are responsible for their own tax and NI (and including an amount in their salary for this to be paid)? Is there anything else I have to do, or does it depend on them?

New to all this, so thanks in advance.

No, employment status is a matter of fact not choice. The facts if looked at by HMRC woukd indicate employment as you are dictating the hours, the pay, the location of the work, what is done, the days wotk is done. A payroll company will charge £100-£250 a year to do the paperwork for you and tell you when to pay HMRC. You will have employers NI to pay on top of the gross salary, how much depends on the salary.

You can't shift tax and NI onto them. Sorry but you're employing them - set days, set hours, set place of work. So you need a decent contract and you need to be prepared to operate PAYE.

It's likely to suit someone who has another (after school) job. Depending on what you pay it's possible that you'll get someone for whom it's their only job and you won't need to go down the PAYE route but at 18hours, unless you're paying practically minimum wage, you need to make deductions. Either way remember to agree a gross wage - don't get distracted by what they want in their hand. Doing that is essentially writing a blank cheque!

When they start work for you you have to check their right to work. You'll probably have done that incidentally along with checking their work history/qualifications/references/identity but it's your responsibility to make sure they can work legally in the UK. Have you vaguely familiarised yourself with the recruitment process?

The other thing you need is to make sure you have employer's liability insurance, often it comes with house insurance but some insurers don't include it so double check.

Well I'm self employed, with hours, days and location set by my clients, but I pay my own tax and NI, so I don't see how this is any different.

But as the consensus is that I need to sort it out, I will do so. It's quite and off-putting amount of hassle for that many hours though.

Thanks for the replies.

Clients - that is a difference. Losses is probably another one, in your business you can make a loss. Subsitution - you may be able to send someone in your place.

If you suspect your clients should really be employing you, then HMRC has a status enquiry line. They also have guidance on IR35 rules that may apply if you are more like a contractor.

Nannies, mothers helps are 99% of the time an employee as they won't be having numerous clients. Temp nannies / maternity nannies tend to be the exception.

HMRC Status Team
IR35

Part time employees have rights. Whilst it may be hassle, I suspect it is done to protect workers, who in this profession are mostly women and many can be quite young. Payroll companies are there to reduce the hassle, for a fee, or you can do it yourself using the online system provided by HMRC. Depending on salary paid, there may be little terms of Employers NI. For example, if £8 gross an hour, then it looks like it is zero. You may find that IF this is the person's only job, then HMRC may not need you to operate PAYE... but it depends on various factors, so for now assume that you do need to operate PAYE and take things from there.
Payroll companies are usually very happy to provide free advice over the phone, so give some a call and go through what you propose, including what salary is on offer as that could be a major factor.
Some payroll companies: www.nannytax.co.uk www.payefornannies.co.uk www.way2paye.co.uk www.taxnanny.co.uk