{ "item_title" : "Hiring Help at Home", "item_author" : [" Alex Fleet "], "item_description" : "You found someone good: a caregiver for your mother, a nanny for the baby, a housekeeper who comes every week. Then the questions start. Are you an employer now? Do you owe Social Security and Medicare, and how much? What is Schedule H, and when is the W-2 due? This short, practical guide answers them in the order a family meets them. It starts with whether you are the employer at all, using the IRS's own test, including the agency and registry cases and the relatives the rules leave out. Then it gives the 2026 numbers: the $3,000 cash-wage line, the 7.65% each side pays, and the $1,000-a-quarter test for federal unemployment tax. The paperwork follows in order: the EIN, the state accounts, Form I-9 and new-hire reporting before the first day; gross to net on every payday; paying the tax during the year through your own withholding or estimated payments; and the W-2, W-3 and Schedule H at year end, with worked examples. Separate chapters cover hiring a caregiver for a parent (agencies, registries, Medicaid self-direction and paying a relative), hiring a nanny or sharing one, deciding whether a housekeeper or gardener is an employee at all, and what to do when a job ends or when you find you should have been paying. Federal wage law gets its own chapter: the minimum wage and overtime rules for workers in a private home, and the two exemptions only families can use. Every figure comes from the IRS, the Department of Labor, USCIS and other government sources, dated to 2026. State rules are given as the questions to ask and the offices that answer them. Checklists, a sample work agreement and a filled-in payroll record close the book. This is an educational guide, not tax or legal advice.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/9/79/816/148/9798161488829_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "9.99", "online_price" : "9.99", "our_price" : "9.99", "club_price" : "9.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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