Temporary summer nanny - PAYE and pension

[KarenVivian]

Hi

I'm employing a student to look after my DCs for 4 weeks in the summer. She'll earn £270 a week so a total of £1080 over the whole period. I'm assuming she's had other jobs during the year and may well have another job when she's working for me as she is a very enterprising girl.

So I am pretty certain I need to do PAYE for her which is proving frustrating as I've got to reregister as an employer after not being one for quite a few years. I've tried downloading Basic PAYE from HMRC which doesn't work on my computer, have spent about one and a half hours on the phone trying to even talk to HMRC and now horror of horrors have seen that there are new rules about pension schemes.

So I wondered if anyone could give me a few pointers:

1. will I really need to worry about a pension scheme or will she be long gone before that's needed?

2. if she starts and leaves within the same tax year will I need to do PAYE returns for the rest of the year even though I'm not going to employ anyone else?

3. Has anyone got a suggestion about how I can reduce the admin surrounding all of this - its pretty complicated ....

4. Anyone used any of the free online software other than HMRC version which seems immensely difficult even though its meant to be easy

Have you thought of using a payroll company? It may be easier for you and some will only charge you for part of the year.

1. To get a pension she would need to be earning over a certain amount.

www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/employers/automatic-enrolment-earnings-threshold.aspx Pension payments are Monthly, so Yes I think you would need to make the appropriate deductions. BUT as you do not have an existing PAYE scheme, I don't think your Start Date is until April 2017.

1. Not sure. I think you would need to do a Leavers submission when she leaves your employment, plus do an Employers End of Year.

1. Use a nanny payroll company. I would guess that you would pay around £90/100 for them to do it all for you, which for a month may seem a bit costly but you have already used several hours of your time trying to figure out how to do it yourself and you may end up spending hours on the phone to HMRC to set things up, sort it out, so think about what your own time is worth and if you feel the price is worth paying to get someone else to have the hassle.

A payroll company will register you with HMRC, issue payslips, remind you when and how to make payments to HMRC, complete the end of year return. Good payroll companies will talk to you for free, so call them during office hours and have a chat. Explain the situation and see what they can offer you.

1. You could look at BrightPay, I have watched some videos but not used it. Have a look at some videos on YouTube and see if it's the sort of thing you want to learn how to use.