All employers of nannies - do you now or will you pay your nanny based on gross amount instead of fixing a net amount as it appears

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taxes will almost certainly rise. I have always paid net mainly because all agencies and nannies (thus far) seem to demand it this way. But given the uncertainty surrounding the inevitable rises income taxes I would be interested in finding out if more employers will pay nannies on a gross basis..

Have always (so for the last 8 years) paid gross. Paying net is a pain in the bum.

totally agree but it London it appears net seems to be the norm for now. Even all the major agencies in London quote net and the nannies expect it too. I am in the process of hiring a new nanny and want to fix on gross but have already hit significant resistence.

Have paid gross for last 3 years. The only time I paid net, for a temp for 3 weeks, I ended up paying her student loan on top of her tax & NI (about which I didn't know until contacted by tax office) so I won't be doing that again.

I currently pay my nanny net, but when she has been with us for a year I will ammend her contract so she is paid gross.
All the nannies I have interviewed expect to be paid net so they "know exactly how much they will be getting each week". (Yes I do also pay them weekly.....)

Am in London and never had difficulty paying gross.

I've just hired a nanny, her contract states gross, and I always discussed gross with agencies. I was just pig headed in all my conversations and every time they started talking about a net weekly rate, I asked them to convert it to a gross rate.

We pay net. She has an day rate and we pay her accordingly. It is a pain, as the amount we pay her monthly including tax changes from month to month depending on how the month falls, so in the end we decided to pay a tax agency to sort it all out.

I'm an employee not an employer but my bosses pay me gross and all the jobs in my area are advertised as gross

Always gross and I am on my 3rd nanny. I just convert the net into gross and make that the offer and in the contract.

I know that nannies like to know what they are getting but we are all epmloyees too and if our tax rises and we have to cover the nannies tax rise there could be some seriously strapped parents.

Surely for nannies its better to have a job than be priced out of an already very difficult market place ?

these are all good points. I will definately go the gross route as i don't want to be caught out when taxes rise and get the squeeze.

our contract gives both gross and the current net equivalent. I wanted the protection of having the gross, but realistically will my nanny take the hit when taxes rise? If I were her, I'd want to renegotiate if there was a significant change to the net, and I'm sure she will want to do so too.
This is complicated further by having verbally agreed a net figure.

gross gross gross. Wouldn't consider any other way. I'm happy to explain current net conversion. But, if her taxes rise, then that is matter for her and Gorden Brown... just as my employer will not change my salary to off set any taxes.

Either you want to be looked after (like a nanny in the Victorian era) and enjoy all the perks that came with that OR you want to be a professional employee just like the people for who you work in the new millenium. But you can't expect to be a professional employee when it suits you and a "cared for" member of the household when it suits you.

Beside, balancing the expenses and some basic accounting is part of being a nanny. If can't even work out your paycheque how are you going to do the financial aspects of the job?

Well said Athene

I'm in London and have just hired my second ever nanny and am paying her gross.

I took the time to really lay out the figures for her so she could see everything clearly and she was happy enough to accept on those terms.

For those that do pay gross, can I just ask how you know exactly what to pay your nanny net each month, particularly if you direct debit their salary?

We will be using nannytax again for payslips etc, but give it won't be a set figure each month as with net, how to you cope with the small monthly adjustments?

I'm not an employer but my boss pays me weekly, and has to make a conscious effort to send me the money each week (they sometimes forget and it's a few days late but I know they're good honest people!)

we have offered our nanny her salary on a gross basis and she has accepted

we will use HMRC to work out the tax and NI and we will pay that accordingly

but realistically will my nanny take the hit when taxes rise? If I were her, I'd want to renegotiate if there was a significant change to the net, and I'm sure she will want to do so too.

Wow how interesting. I haven't even dreamt of negotiating with my employer if taxes rose - and wouldn't expect my nanny to do so either. So on the same logic, would you reduce gross pay if taxes went down? Just curious.

Well, I don't have a nanny any longer but if she (or he!) came to me looking for a payrise based solely on the fact that taxes were rising, it would be a very short conversation! I can't imagine that many of us would be able to renegotiate our salaries with our employers on that basis, so I wouldn't (and couldn't) treat my nanny any differently. For one thing, I probably couldn't afford the double whammy of receiving less in my own pay packet and simultaneously having to pay my nanny more.

I concur Annh. I really don't get why nannies, over and above all professions, should be exempt from the realities of tax life.

They will get a sharp shock should they ever decide to change professions.

i know we should talk about wages in gross, but i blame the nanny agencys and including nannytax who always state jobs in nett

i state what i want in nett and work it out roughly what is in gross so employers know what they are forking out

if we do mention gross to parents, many want nett figures

we cant win

I pay and contract is based on gross although when salary expectations were discussed it was net so grossed it up at rate of
time.

Blondses while you are about what type of things have been appreciated by you as birthday gift from employer? Our lovely nanny birthday in a couple of weeks - was thinking of vouchers for somewhere . What do you reckon?

Sycamore

For those that do pay gross, can I just ask how you know exactly what to pay your nanny net each month, particularly if you direct debit their salary?

You don't direct debit someone's salary. I think you may mean paying by BACS or Standing Order. These days most banks will let you send payments via BACS fairly quickly and at low cost, so once you get the payslip, you then instruct the bank to transfer the net amount (minus any amounts coming from childcare vouchers) from your account to the nannies account.

Thanks NN. Yes, you're right, I mean standing order.

That's what I thought I'd end up doing - just using online banking to switch the amount monthly according to payslip.

Thanks.

I can't wait for my nanny to start. I just forgot DD's swimming lesson for the second week in a row . We need someone to organise us!

SycamoretreeisVile - it usually only varies by a small amount (except when there are tax changes) so the other thing you can do is pay a set amount by Standing Order and then give her cash (or ask her to take it out the kitty if you have one)to make up the remainder if it's under.