My Mum as Assistant from Feb - Wages help??

Hello everyone, and Happy New Year!

I hope someone can give me some advice on this, as am a bit stumped I think!

From Feb, my mum will be working with me on a Thursday morning (term-time only) so that I can take on siblings for a few days per week. This would take me to 4 under 5's on a Thurs morning, hence the reason she will be working with me on that day.

She is already registered as my assistant, and I paid for her to do her 1st aid course thinking she would help out with school runs every now and then if needed, which she was happy to do.

But now she will be working each week with me, I feel that I need to pay her something. I was thinking £4 per hour, which would be £20 for the morning that I need her. But how do I go about putting this through my accounts, and what do I need to register as? I don't want to employ her and pay NI, sick pay etc... as I would lose so much money doing it that way, and I don't think she expects me to pay her anything - but I don't think that would be right!

She's a retired primary teacher, who now works part-time doing special needs work for her previous school (and sometimes another one). So I presume she already pays some tax/NI if necessary, but I don't want things to get messed up for her!

I would be really grateful of any advice on this. Thanks in advance.

I believe you have to pay at least minimum wage which for an adult is £6.19 per hour and I think if you employ her you will have to also register as an employer and run a PAYE scheme to deduct tax and NI, however she could be self employed and receive an agreed sum from you for work provided, this money would then have to be declared on her tax self assessment form and she would have to pay tax on it if her total income from all sources exceeded her tax allowance if she is retired I don't think she will be liable to pay NI


Allie

Hi Allie,

Thanks for the reply. I don't want to register as an employer and have to pay NMW, as it's not feasible.

But I'm worried about how her registering as self-emp will affect the other wages she does receive from being employed elsewhere. Do you know what she would register her self-emp as?

It is easy to, do I used to do the self assessment for my childminding then add my income from my tutoring job, you just have another page added to the form when you tell them online you have another income. Tax from my tutoring was taken off on a BR code which means taxed as if I had used all my tax free income in my other job as a childminder, but if the income from all my jobs had been equal or less than the tax allowance I would heave got all that tax back at the end of the year (luckily I always made loads more than that)


Allie

Just a thought and I don't know if it's ok to do but can she work as a volunteer with you and you buy her a thank you gift occasionally? Treat her to a hair do, a nice meal, some flowers or maybe a pamper day once in a while. it will show her that you appreciate her help :)

The N I lower limit applies to each job rather than a personals individual allowance so at £20 per week you are nowhere near that, its worth giving the inland revenue a ring on this for advice as I believe you can employ someone up to a certain amount (not exactly sure as this information was second hand to me) and not have to register as an employer with all the associated paperwork (still need emplyers liability insurance tho - think this comes as part of insuring an assistant anyway) Hope this helps. Minimum wage does also apply but then u cud just pay her for a lower number of hours and have some voluntary hours.

Thanks all for the suggestions :)

Think it has sorted itself, but not in a good way :( as one of my parents has decided to send her son to a friend's nursery from Feb and will be giving formal notice tomorrow! So will no longer be over my numbers, but am quite gutted!