Au- Pair : registering as an employer

[OVienna]

Hi
I know the rules about registering as an employer have changed since we had a nanny.

Am I correct in thinking that now employers are required to file something every month with HMRC and ALSO - this is the important bit - once you do it for one employee (in this case an au pair) we are in the system and we'd have to do it for every other one even if we weren't paying them over the threshold and they didn't have a second job?

It's this last bit I remember reading about somewhere at the time (and thinking thankfully we'd had a lucky escape) but I am wondering if it was misinformation/scaremongering at the time.

I know all about agreeing a gross wage etc so I'm not worried about that element of things. I just have so much paperwork etc at the moment I just cannot commit to doing it for another X number of years just because for this one off reason it made sense for this particular AP to take on this very specific role...

Looks like you just do an electronic return to finalise the payroll.

www.gov.uk/stop-employing-staff

But if I hire another au pair I have to continue filing? Maybe I should just ring them.

No, you can de register as an employee and then you can stop having to file every month.

I use this payroll site Its £5.75 a month.
www.thepayrollsite.co.uk which actually reminds me by email every month to file a nil return. However, I have forgotten on occasion and nothing has happened. I never have de-registered as occasionally I get a fab job offer for a couple of months and need a full-time nanny!

If you have deregistered and then you hire an aupair but pay them below the lower earnings threshold, then you would not need to reactivate the PAYE scheme, least that is how I read the info on the Gov.uk page.

You would reactivate it if you you paid them at or above the threshold, in the same way you would register as an employer at that point if you were starting from scratch.

If there is a good change you will hire someone else the same tax year, then file zero returns.

Thanks so much.