Babysitting - inside or outside nanny contract?

[Gizmo]

OK childcare tax gurus - here's an interesting one: how is babysitting treated for tax purposes?

I'd like to arrange a weekly babysitting night for DH and I to go out together. I can obviously resource this by using friends and other regular babysitters, or I could ask potential nanny to do this (if she is available). This makes sense, if only because she'll be a familiar presence for the kids.

However, I'm not comfortable with making babysitting a part of the contract, because frankly I'm not paying enough to make that a fair deal for the nanny. I'd be happy to pay the nanny as I would any other babysitter ie cash in hand.

Except, it feels a bit...well....dodgy. She could stop work at 6 as a nanny, start at 6.05 as a babysitter and immediately her income has no tax on it. That can't be right, surely? So can anyone help me out? What would the tax status of this arrangement be? Do I really have to organise a different babysitter?

I'm a nanny and babysit for several families - including my full time employers. All my babysitting is paid cash in hand - the way you would with anyone else. It's the way everyone i know works - so don't worry too much about it - you wouldn't be paying another babysitters tax would you?

OK, so I'll stop obsessing about it. My usual OCD re taxes, I guess. Still, it's a convenient loophole - don't know why it exists, but I guess if I ask too many questions it might go away, and that would be annoying.

All my extra babysitting is paid cash in hand.

all my babysitting is cash in hand as well!

i dont do that much babysitting anyway!

we pay cash in hand for babysitting, but at a more generous rate than the hourly pay she gets for nannying. And after the first 45 mins of babysitting, the little darlings are asleep.

doesn't make it more legit, of course, but it feels like I am only cheating G Brown (of tax and NI). Nanny herself gets cash now and up to her whether she squanders it or invests for her old age, to make up for the missed NI contributions

There is very little mention of this within law. Government have at times discussed babysitters - but not in this context. For example - Hansard: 13 Feb 1998 part 12 where employment as a babysitter is mentioned as
"The basic provision in section 18 of the 1933 Act covers only employment. As the hon. Member for Guildford(Mr. St. Aubyn) pointed out, the definition of employment in that Act is assisting in a trade or occupation carried on for profit, so it would not cover the job of babysitter." This was in a debate regarding the Employment of Children Bill (1998), and the 1933 Act mentioned I believe is the Children and Young Persons Act 1933.

Not sure this helps.