Regularising an irregular childminder

[diggerdigger]

Hi, we have a lady who looks after our 3 kids during the week.

We are both PAYE workers, so not too familiar with prsi, payroll, etc.

It was quite irregular as we had an afterschool, but the afterschool has closed down due to covid.

Duties are childminding; pick up from school, bring home, get a snack, take to the park.

It was quite irregular as we had an afterschool, but the afterschool has closed down due to covid. For the last month it has been more regular, 4-5 hours per day, weekdays.

She had, and still has other casual work as far as I know.

I can see that I need to regularise this, but how best should I deal with the historic situation and revenue. We never really kept any records, and paid cash per hour more akin to babysitting.

Any advice welcome.

 

[Nutso]

If the childminder is working in your home, you need to register as an employer with Revenue (you can use either yours or your wife's PPS number) and issue payslips to the employee; you will need to register on ROS to do PAYE returns and you will need to pay periodically (monthly/quarterly) any tax/PRSI/USC to REvenue. The childminder will need to be paid at least minimum wages rates (not suggesting they aren't being paid that already).
Payroll returns need to be submitted to Revenue every pay period (weekly/two weekly/monthly). This is much easier if you use a payroll package; there are some cheap packages out there for small business, there may even be some free ones for one employee.

Don't forget you will also need to issue a contract to your employee, you should be able to find some templates online.

As for the historic situation, you should ideally back pay any taxes etc but you would need to make some estimations to do this. Also you would need to gross up the taxes etc based on the net payments made to the childminder.

 

[diggerdigger]

As for the historic situation, you should ideally back pay any taxes etc but you would need to make some estimations to do this. Also you would need to gross up the taxes etc based on the net payments made to the childminder.

Thanks for the help. I assume whatever estimations she would need to be agreed by her?
Annoyed I put it on the long finger and let it go till now. but it was a handful of hours a week before Covid, and then nothing up to the kids going back to school.

 

[sadie]

Have you spoken to the childminder about your plans? She may not want this work brought into the tax system.
Unfortunately sometimes this sort of work is sometimes not worth doing if you have to pay tax on it, or if it takes you into a different tax bracket.
Also to be considered if the childminder is jointly assessed with her spouse.
If it were me, I'd leave the historic situation alone because as you say it was more akin to babysitting on an ad hoc basis.
Good childminders are hard to find. Especially the sort that you don't have to pay a retainer to retain their services on days/situations where they are not needed.