After you hire a nanny, you can breathe a sigh of relief that your children will be well taken care of (phew!), but wait just a minute – you have now become a Household Employer! With this new role comes new tax responsibilities, rules to abide by and regulations that must be followed.
This is the point where we highly recommend you contact Breedlove and Associates (888.273.3356) – the experts in household employment. They can help you from A to Z, protecting you as an employer, avoiding any government fines, and ensuring that your nanny receives Social Security and Medicare benefits, and has access to unemployment benefits if necessary.
However, if you decide to go at it alone, you must learn about the household employers’ tax laws. Breedlove has a comprehensive Household Employers Guide available to you, but here are some household employer compliance checklist items for your reference:
- Obtain household employer tax IDs
- File New Hire Report
- Calculate employee tax withholdings and track all federal and state employer taxes.
- Prepare and distribute Form W-2 at year end
You may need to withhold (and pay) social security, Medicare, and all applicable state taxes from the employee’s pay. Income taxes should also be withheld in accordance with the employee’s Form W-4 selections. It is also very important that you keep your household staff’s payroll separate from any business payroll you may have. It must be its own separate entity.
It is definitely manageable to handle the process yourself, but if this all sounds overwhelming, we again encourage you to contact Breedlove and Associates (888.273.3356)!