Pay my own Tax, PRSI etc

CL10

I am a Childminder and have just received a job offer to mind children in their own home as a Nanny. The family wants me to pay my own tax and prsi etc. I have no idea how to go about this? The last family I have been with for the last few years paid me cash in hand, I know that isn't right but it's all I could get at the time and it's how they wanted to do it. Now I'm happy to pay taxes etc as it's the right thing to do but how do I go about doing this? I have no idea. Any help would be greately appreciated, thank you.

Thoie

This link (and the various off-shoots) might be a useful starting place.

Realistically, you're probably not going to be registering for VAT (though I have no idea what nannies earn), so it's relatively straightforward. The Revenue are pretty approachable these days. If you can make some time to get an appointment with your local office they'll probably step you through what needs to be done.

The main thing is to keep your accounts in order. The easiest way to do this is probably a spreadsheet, noting how much you got paid, and when (as well as any claimable outgoings - uniform, perhaps?). Work out your tax and PRSI liabilities, and put a certain sum away somewhere safe each month so that at the end of the year you have the money for your tax bill.

I was contracting at one stage and at the time used put a third of my monthly wage into a separate account for paying tax with.

It's possible to do the paper work without an accountant, but an accountant will be able to help you make the most of your tax credits - for example by paying the max amount into a PRSA each year, knowing what allowable expenses are, etc.

CL10

Thanks very much Thoie. I will be earning €525 per week so would that still make me exempt from registering for VAT? I'm not the greatest with figures but if I can do it all without an accountant I'll try to. I'll have a look at that link now thanks. Will try and get an appointment with my local office too to make sure I'm not missing anything. Thank you for your help.

Thoie

CL10 wrote: »

Thanks very much Thoie. I will be earning €525 per week so would that still make me exempt from registering for VAT? I'm not the greatest with figures but if I can do it all without an accountant I'll try to.

I'm pretty sure you'd be under the VAT threshold (but I'm not an accountant/tax specialist, so I don't guarantee that )

If you're any good with Excel you can make up a spreadsheet in advance with the various tax rates and tax bands in it, and then just update those rates each year with the budget.

If I was doing it again I'd set up a spreadsheet with Tab 1 as income/expenditure - I'd have columns something like this:

Date Description In(€) Out(€) Running Balance
1/3/10 Wages for weekending 28/2 500 500
1/3/10 Petrol/machine gun 50 450

On tab 2 I'd have a list of the current tax credits and levels from the budget:
Annual Single Allowance: 3000
First 30k @ : 20%
Remainder @ : 50%
PRSI : 3%
Health Levy : 4% (these are all made up figures)

Further down on tab 2 I'd then have my weekly/monthly "Taxes due" number (calculated from all the other numbers), so I could use that at any time to figure out how much I should have saved in my tax account.

Dixie Chick

Hi OP

Childminding is VAT exempt, so you dont have to worry about that side.

The person who you are chilminding for is by law supposed to register for PAYE/PRSI but obviously doesnt want to do so. You will need to register for Income Tax, for this you fill in a form TR1. The form asks that you state what you will be doing, and if you fill in childminder they may ask for more details (just something to be aware of).