Hire Direct and the Payroll Stays With You: Keep the Worker's Tax Paper Current Each Year

When you hire a worker directly for in-home, non-medical help, the payroll job lands on your desk. An agency carries that job for you. Once you are the employer, the paper repeats every year, and the worker's file has to stay complete for as long as the arrangement lasts.

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What the employer owes

Federal rules for household employers cover Social Security and Medicare taxes on cash wages above a set threshold, federal unemployment tax above a separate threshold, and federal income tax withholding when the worker asks for it. Missouri and its employment security office have their own registration and withholding rules, and those change on their own schedule. Get the current thresholds from IRS Publication 926, the Household Employer's Tax Guide, before you pay the first check each year. Do not rely on a figure you saw once.

The paper to keep current

Keep one file for the worker and update it whenever something changes.

• A completed federal Form W-4 from the worker, and a new one whenever the worker asks to change withholding.
• A record of each payment: the date, gross wages, any withholding, the amount paid, and how it was paid.
• Hours or days worked, if you track them. Keep the schedule in writing even if the worker keeps a log of their own.
• A written job description that lists the tasks in the job, including errands.
• The worker's current contact details and mailing address for the year-end statement.
• Your own record of tax deposits and the household returns you filed.

What comes once a year

Gather the year's totals before tax filing season. Give the worker the wage statement the rules require. Report household employment on the schedule the IRS sets, which for most households is filed with your personal return. Keep the records for as long as the IRS guidance says, and ask your tax preparer to confirm the period. Then check the state side separately: registration, withholding, and any unemployment filing each have their own state office and their own forms.

Where errands end and medication begins

A non-medical caregiver can be given reminders and an errand to pick up prescriptions. That line belongs in the written job description. The caregiver does not hand out, give, sort, or manage medicine. Those tasks stay with the family, the doctor, and the pharmacist. If the written duties drift past that line, correct the duties in writing, and correct the payroll file to match.

When to stop and call someone

A tax question on your own return goes to a tax preparer or to the IRS. A dispute about pay, a worker injury, or a contract question is a lawyer's question, and the Missouri Bar can point you to a lawyer referral service. A list of local help is on the Local Help With Paying for Care page. Nothing on this page replaces that advice.