38.1 Who Is a Household Employee?

If you hired someone to do household work in or around your home and you were able to control what work he or she did and how it was done, you had a household employee. This could include a babysitter, house cleaner, cook, nanny, yard worker, maid, driver, health aide, or private nurse. Unless an exception applies (see below), such a worker is your employee regardless of whether the work is full or part time or whether you hired the worker through an agency or from a list provided by an agency or association. Also, it does not matter if the wages were paid for work done on an hourly, daily, weekly, or per-job basis.

If a worker is your household employee, you may have to withhold and pay Social Security and Medicare taxes (FICA, 38.2) and pay federal unemployment tax (FUTA,38.4).

Workers who are not your employees.

Workers you hire through an agency are not your employees if the agency is responsible for who does the work and how it is done. If you use a placement agency that exercises control over what work is done and how it is done, the worker is not your employee. Self-employed workers are also not your employees; in addition to maintaining control over how their work is done, self-employed workers usually provide their own tools and offer services to the general public. For example, you need work done on your lawn and you hire the self-employed owner of a lawn care business, who provides his own tools and supplies and hires and pays any other workers as needed. He and his workers are not your household employees.

Notable exceptions to the household employee definition.

You do not have to file a Schedule H and pay Social Security, Medicare, or federal unemployment taxes if the household employee was your spouse, your child who was under age 21, or, in most cases, your parent. However, for Social Securuty and Medicare tax (38.2) purposes, you must treat your parent as your household employee if he or she takes care of your child in your home and (1) the child is either under age 18 or has a physical or mental condition that requires personal care by a adult for at least four continuous weeks in a calendar quarter, and (2) you are divorced and not remarried, widowed, or are living with a spouse whose physical or mental condition prevents him or her from caring for your child for at least four continuous weeks in a calendar quarter.

For Social Security and Medicare tax purposes, you do not have to include wages paid to an individual who is under age 18 at any point during the year so long as his or her principal occupation is not providing household services; a student under age 18 qualifies for this exception and is not considered a household employee.

Verifying employment status.

It is unlawful to employ an alien who cannot legally work in the United States. If you hire a household employee to work for you on a regular basis, you and the employee must each complete part of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification. You must verify that the employee is either a U.S. citizen or an alien who can legally work in the U.S. and you must keep Form I-9 for your records. The form and a USCIS Handbook for Employers can be obtained at www.uscis.gov or by calling 1-800-870-3676. For answers to other questions about the employment eligibility verification process or other immigration-related matters, contact the USCIS Office of Business Liaison at 1-800-357-2099.

Employee’s Social Security number.

You are required to get each employee’s name and Social Security number and enter them on Form W-2. This applies to both resident and nonresident alien employees. You may not accept an individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN) in place of an SSN. An ITIN is only available to resident and nonresident aliens who are ineligible to work in the U.S. and need identification for tax purposes. You may verify up to 10 names and numbers by calling the Social Security Administration and registering for automated telephone access at 1-800-772-6270, or by getting online access at www.socialsecurity.gov/employer.