Nanny on long term sick leave - AIBU

[StayAtHomeMumbler]

I am six months pregnant with my second child and have bad sciatica. Our nanny has unfortunately been off work for 6 weeks due to illness (which I have no reason whatsoever to question) and we have paid her in full, despite no obligation to do so. Her doctor has recommended at least another two weeks off and I fear she may need longer due to complications with her recovery. We have been a good employer to her historically and want to continue to support her within reason, as she is a good woman and is a wonderful nanny to our son, but at the same time, I really need support at the moment as I am really struggling both mentally and physically, with no other support available from friends or family at present. I am going to look into getting a temp nanny, but paying for two nannies is obviously not a sustainable solution. AIBU to be feeling hard done by and to be questioning how much longer we can continue to support her when we are not receiving the support I need in return? At what point do we draw the line?

Do you know she’s definitely sick? Are you sure she’s not claiming sick pay from you and spending the time working another job to make up this family money deficit?

@QueenOfPain

Do you know she’s definitely sick? Are you sure she’s not claiming sick pay from you and spending the time working another job to make up this family money deficit?

This is exactly what I was thinking as I was reading this .

[quote StayAtHomeMumbler]@OverTheRubicon* *@ZaphodBeeblerox
Thank you for your helpful responses. She works 15 hours a week at £12 an hour, so not as huge a tax/NI/pension contribution as you feared @overtherubicon, thankfully! Will get it settled with HMRC.

@zaphodbeeblerox - I had assumed all along that she’d been declaring (at least some) of her income - but if it’s not possible to be a nanny and self employed, how could she have been doing so?

I don’t want to let her go if at all possible - she really is the most wonderful, hardworking nanny. But we are definitely going to sort out our tax position and I’ll be reducing her sick pay going forwards.

Thanks again all![/quote]
You'll need to talk with her about other jobs before you talk to HMRC. The issue with net Vs gross pay is that any other jobs will.affect how much tax you have to pay for her (so if she has a salaried job 2 days a week and is claiming the tax free threshold from them, you will have to pay a lot more tax than if you're her only employer). As @ZaphodBeeblerox said, she may also be very reluctant for you to go to HMRC as she may have been claiming benefits, especially if her financial situation is as difficult as it sounds. On that note, like others said I'd be wanting to see an official sick note, if she asked to borrow a large sum of money and then suddenly developed a protracted illness - not to ask for the money back in any case, as it sounds like she's been good to you and you can afford it, but because trust is so important with a nanny and you want to be sure you have an open working relationship in future.

For the future for her another nanny you'll also have to budget more, as £12 is standard to pay net of tax and pension, if you want a decent nanny.

Good luck with sorting this out, and hope things go well with your new baby.

And if truely se she would have her own contract like I do

I’m wondering if she is claiming as well or if not def working somewhere else

Can’t survive on 15hrs

It would be very unlikely that she is declaring her income (at least specifically declaring her income as being from nannying and for the full amount) since she would be required to be employed as an employee by you.

In this situation I would just draw a line under it, speak to her about ending the engagement and move on. Just practically if she had been claiming benefits by claiming to be unemployed you could open yet another can of worms for her by starting a backdated tax claim. (I am aware of the ethics of this but also this is someone struggling financially with covid mid pandemic and with a school aged child).

And £12 net is reasonable, but £12 gross seems very low for a nanny. You’ll need to budget more for when you hire your next nanny I think.

Area depending

I know many on £12/13 gross

I think it’s fine

I’ve had several nannies over the years and every single one of them has known that they are not allowed to be self employed. If yours actually suggested this as a set up either they are not a qualified nanny or they are on the fiddle! Sorry.

Set days and hours no to se

But nannies can be se in temp as hoc work

Hence why I asked what days and hours nanny does

It’s possible but rare for a nanny to be SE.
If she’s declared for tax you’re probably ok but would need to regularise the employment position in any event ASAP.

Outside London £12 gross not unreasonable. If no contract OP I would drop to SSP.

Apols that was a very London-centric view. No idea what rates nannies charge outside London.

Offer her two more weeks then start again when she is well enough to resume work. - could the now unemployed person in her family be a temporary stand in?

I agree with everybody else, it's very unlikely she is legally SE, it is very rare for a nanny to be so, and you are on the hook for it as her employer. You need to get nanny payroll advice urgently. Do or did you issue her payslips? Do you have a contract? Do you have employers liability insurance?

You've been very passive and naive about this. You need to understand your responsibilities as an employer and your tax liability urgently. If she dobs you in to HMRC you are going to have some trouble on your hands. She could have declared the income as SE without any direct problems; it's the employer who holds the responsibility and is in trouble for paying someone cash in hand when they meet the legal criteria as an employee.

Somebody upthread said PAYE etc only comes into play if you employ a nanny for 16 or more hours. OP has said her nanny only works for 15 hours a week. Does this change the situation?

Just interested to know for future reference.

I'm not aware that hours worked has any direct bearing on employed Vs self employed status, although it may affect tax and NI liability. Indeed, having a fixed number of agreed hours a week points strongly to an employed situation.

There are other legal obligations of an employer, for instance to issue payslips, provide paid holiday.

At say £13ph cash in hand for 15 hours, the OP would have some minimal NI and pension obligations. It depends what the nanny is paid, I think.

@StayAtHomeMumbler what are the 15hrs

5 x 3hrs so after school

Set hours and days are employed

What other jobs does nanny do

@Blondeshavemorefun she does 3 mornings a week for 5 hrs each time, at £12ph. Usually set days but we chop and change depending on her availability. To my knowledge she has no other employment.

@justchecking1

Somebody upthread said PAYE etc only comes into play if you employ a nanny for 16 or more hours. OP has said her nanny only works for 15 hours a week. Does this change the situation?

Just interested to know for future reference.

It's not about number of hours, it's about the type of contract. There are a ton of good resources online from people more expert than most of us on here, but a good rule of thumb is that a truly self employed person who doesn't need have employee rights can generally set their working hours and has the right to subcontract their work.

[quote StayAtHomeMumbler]@Blondeshavemorefun she does 3 mornings a week for 5 hrs each time, at £12ph. Usually set days but we chop and change depending on her availability. To my knowledge she has no other employment.[/quote]
Ah. So she could be se

If can change the day to suit her and not set in stone

Why doesn’t she look for another nanny job

15hrs is very few hours

She could do afternoons x3

And 3 full days somewhere

If they hve such financial problem this would make sense

Tho also if she isn’t working anywhere else why can’t she do the same 3 days

I work in tax and also employ a nanny. Its very unusual for a nanny to be self employed as many PPs have already said. It is possible but usually requires the nanny to be working on temp or adhoc contracts and for multiple families.

So assuming she doesn't meet these criteria it sounds like she's been taking cash in hand. You need to speak to HMRC as soon as possible (bearing in mind they get VERY busy this time of year with personal tax returns) and pay the unremiited PAYE and NICs. If she's a UK citizen this is also in her best interests as she will get a higher state pension as well as an employer.pension contribution from you. Nannytax and nannyPAYE both have calculator tools on their websites where you can see what it will cost you as an employer. They also have helplines and can offer HR and legal advice to fix the mess you are in before it gets any worse

Also, without wanting to be rude, you have made it worse by paying her as if she was an employee. No self employed person would get sick pay, a bonus or any other type of pay. Would a plumber, or cleaner expect a month's "salary"? No, because they don't get a salary, they invoice you their fees. If you are kind you might give them a wee extra at Xmas but they have no employment rights. Your nanny has been treated as a de facto employee by you, so the onus is on you to fix this

I think you need to get her a contract, OP. I recommend NannyPAYE.

So and speaking as someone who knows how hard it is to find and keep a good nanny, I have some suspicions about this set up for the following reasons:

1. As people said, you can be self employed as a nanny but it it incredibly rare. The reason I think she isn't is she would have to be so up to speed on it all. i.r would have let you know that should she not be able to come, she would be able to send a replacement nanny etc that you would also have known that she wouldn't get sick leave. The fact she is taking it without a sick note and has previously asked you for a loan makes me think she's simply been working cash in hand and not declaring it.

1. The problem for you is that in these circumstances, it's not the nanny who gets fined, it's you!

1. It used to be that as an employer , a domestic employee could earn less tax around 90 per week and you didn't need to declare it but that changed when they realised many nannies job shared so her hours would need to be declared.

We once interviewed someone, who said she wanted to work cash in hand. When we explained that we would never pay someone cash in hand as an employer, and explained to her how much better what we were offering in terms of paid leave, contract etc was, she emailed back to say that if she declared her income she would lose her benefits.....

I honestly think you're in such a tangled web now that it would be best to terminate her employment kindly - perhaps give a 1 week full pay as a gesture, explained to her the mistake you made on the assumption that she was self employed, then use one of the nanny tax company to back track for you. We employed a nanny for nearly a decade for around 12 hours per week and your tax and NI bill doesn't add up to too much with these hours.

There are , unfortunately, many very talented, intelligent people, who have been made redundant during this pandemic and so it shouldn't take you long to find someone else.

You are a pregnant mother, and although we all have responsibilities to each other, your primary responsibilities is to you child and your unborn child - which means looking after your own health when pregnant.

I blame lockdown for coming back onto the nanny threads. We last employed one some time ago now but she only worked 8 hours a week for us and we still employed her. We did the paperwork ourselves through the HMRC website.

It is easy to screw up with this as a new parent - we did with our first one years ago who was also part time and told us she worked for/had plans to work for other families. Based on my experience of freelancers at the time, I thought this was possible and I didn't realise there was a carve out for domestic employees (not all - apparently a chauffeur can be self-employed??? Good to know.) I have interviewed plenty of people over the years who have announced that 'they're self-employed', it happens all the time. It is not the case that 'all nannies know' they have to be employed or if they do they're deliberately trying to pull the wool over the eyes of inexperienced parents or trying to identify parents willing to bend the rules (also numerous.) One thing about COVID is that this will probably flush some of these arrangements out in a way that may make people more reluctant to be non-compliant again, as they can't furlough etc.

Childminders are self-employed and another thing that happened when we were interviewing was people using the word 'childminder' instead of nanny but "not realising" you can't be a 'childminder' and work from someone else's home. It's not someone's self-declared job title that determines their tax status. Try explaining that to some people though.

I don't miss the witch hunts on here when someone comes on for advice - thankfully when we screwed up years ago I did get good advice without the now-normal dose of sanctimony and approbation.