employing younger family member
employing younger family member
Author
Discussion

cheeky_chops

Original Poster:

1,613 posts

268 months

Thursday 8th October 2020
quotequote all
Missus is sole director of a ltd company. She has various sources of income, one is lecturing on specialist technical courses. Shes been asked to try some online course next year, its going to involve putting packs together, posting/receiving them back, then on the day streaming, multiple cameras/feeds. Its a tough gig mentally and she doesnt want to worry about the tech so figure we can get my 15yo son involved to do some work, spec/setup all the tech, run it on the day and help pack it all away.

Ive googled and straight away im put off as employer liability and pensions need to be considered!! So is it worth the hastle? Probably a couple of days work per course, maybe 4 next year, hes not 16 til May 2021. She already has a payroll for salary. Cheers

Error_404_Username_not_found

3,670 posts

68 months

Thursday 8th October 2020
quotequote all
Make the boy a shareholder with a small stake. Pay him in dividends. No employment benefits and better tax rates, depending on how much he makes. Prolly end up doing his tax return for him though, but that's not too onerous.

Simpo Two

89,553 posts

282 months

Friday 9th October 2020
quotequote all
He's 15. Most people would just give him some cash.

Frimley111R

17,451 posts

251 months

Friday 9th October 2020
quotequote all
Simpo Two said:
He's 15. Most people would just give him some cash.
This, see how it goes. He may get bored and not want to bother after a short time and you'll have invested a load of time in the paperwork side.

CubanPete

3,676 posts

205 months

Friday 9th October 2020
quotequote all
Simpo Two said:
He's 15. Most people would just give him some cash.
This.

Guess it depends if the overhead of an employee is more efficient tax wise for your wife than cash.

MaxFromage

2,438 posts

148 months

Friday 9th October 2020
quotequote all
Error_404_Username_not_found said:
Make the boy a shareholder with a small stake. Pay him in dividends. No employment benefits and better tax rates, depending on how much he makes. Prolly end up doing his tax return for him though, but that's not too onerous.
This doesn't work for many reasons. The main one being that he's 15.

As you have a payroll set up, any employed income you pay him should be included on your payroll, even though he wouldn't pay any tax. Alternatively he can earn £1,000 a year utilising the trading allowance exemption. But the reality it, you may as well just pay him some cash given the low volume of the transactions.

PushedDover

6,669 posts

70 months

Friday 9th October 2020
quotequote all
I am suspecting in reality there is also a desire to hive off whatever is possible from the Ltd .... hence following biggrin

foliedouce

3,094 posts

248 months

Friday 9th October 2020
quotequote all
You could hire a room with the tech already set up to save the hassle?

We’ve got a 3 camera / mic professional webinar set up in our meeting room with a mixing desk that can be used for exactly this kind of thing. We sometimes let it to a local business.

There maybe a similar set to locally to you

M22s

576 posts

166 months

Friday 9th October 2020
quotequote all
Why wouldn’t you just pay him a bit more pocket money for helping mum? I don’t mean that to sound pokey, genuine question.

anonymous-user

71 months

Friday 9th October 2020
quotequote all
M22s said:
Why wouldn’t you just pay him a bit more pocket money for helping mum? I don’t mean that to sound pokey, genuine question.
The above is the obvious answer.

I worked for my parents business on and off starting at about 14 ish.

I didn't get paid, but was correctly told that me helping out helped the family finances, and therefore I was helping myself in the long run... because the family finances would eventually be handed to me.

To be honest, I would just ask the 15 year old if he would work for no pay, on the grounds that he is no doubt rewarded in pocket money, clothes, gadgets, presents, and pretty much everything else that a 15 year old requires.

In fact cancel that, I wouldn't ask him, I would tell him he was helping.

V8 Stang

4,467 posts

200 months

Saturday 10th October 2020
quotequote all
M22s said:
Why wouldn’t you just pay him a bit more pocket money for helping mum? I don’t mean that to sound pokey, genuine question.
Or just tell him to do it, or no dinner..... hehe

minghis

1,576 posts

268 months

Sunday 11th October 2020
quotequote all

Similar thing with us. We have a 15 year old who works weekends for us cleaning, tidying up and doing some IT stuff. We asked book keeper if we could put him on payroll, the suggestion was that he fills out a timesheet and hands it in monthly and we just pay him using the timesheet like a receipt for purchases.

Keeps the books straight and seems the only 'proper' way to employ a youngster.

bucksmanuk

2,343 posts

187 months

Sunday 11th October 2020
quotequote all
I would do this properly, this isn’t helping out with the lawn mowing, or tidying his room regularly, or helping dad with some DIY.

Extreme anecdotal example - A school mate’s parents had a haberdashery - they “asked” him to work long hours and so regularly- it was affecting his school work. He was 14. He wasn’t paid anything. He decided his efforts were worth a few quid, so he took it out of the till. They never even noticed… a really bad instance to start your life with.

Countdown

45,119 posts

213 months

Sunday 11th October 2020
quotequote all
Unless she wants to reduce taxable company profits I would just pay him cash. It’s not worth the hassle to set him up on payroll.

Although having said that, its not particularly hard.......

hunton69

674 posts

154 months

Friday 16th October 2020
quotequote all
Once he has a National insurance number put him on the payroll
Can’t see the problem.
Paying pension is good for him or he can opt out but why
All my kids have started their careers working for my businesses

Jockman

18,257 posts

177 months

Friday 16th October 2020
quotequote all
What pension is he eligible for?

Auto enrolment doesn’t start til 22 and his earning are way below NI level I should imagine.