Many people decide to hire a housekeeper who is self-employed, but that just creates more headaches than it’s worth.  You are much better off hiring a company to take care of your house cleaning because then you don’t have to handle any of the paperwork that is involved in hiring help around your house.  After all, you still have to report to the IRS what you pay out to a self-employed house cleaner.  This makes filing even your personal taxes just as complicated as your business taxes because suddenly you have to require your workers to fill out a Form 1099-Misc, which is the form you will use to report their earnings.

A Form 1099-Misc must be used to report all miscellaneous income, including:

•    Cash from odd jobs, like work as a house keeper

•    Trades or barters

•    Interest

•    Winnings from a contest

•    Gambling winnings

If your house keeper is self-employed, then he or she will need to fill out Form 1099-Misc for each employer they have, including you.  Then it is up to you to file that 1099 with the IRS so that you are legally reporting how much you paid to them.

The only way to legally avoid all that paperwork is to hire a professional house keeper company instead of a self-employed house cleaner. That way you just have to pay the service fees to the company, and the company then takes care of all payments and income tax reporting for your house keeper.  Hiring a company to do all of your house cleaning services prevents you from having to file that paperwork and also protects you from many of the liabilities involved in hiring someone to work in your home.  You can also rest assured that the company has already taken care of background checks and other questions surrounding the hire of a house keeper that most homeowners never even think about, further ensuring your protection.


Author: Craig Sedoris
Published: June 21, 2011 at 1:30 pm

Read more: http://technorati.com/women/article/is-your-house-cleaner-an-independent/#ixzz1PzJWbySq