Hiring a teenager as a household employee
First you need to ensure that you are not violating any Federal child labor laws. I would look at this: U.S. Dept of Labor, Wage & Hour Div., Standards for 14- and 15-Year Olds in Nonagricultural Employment. These were the items that pertained to Federal Law, for 14 year olds: 14 is the minimum age for employment in specified occupations outside   of school hours for limited periods of time each day and each week.   Fourteen- and 15-Year-Olds May Not Be Employed: There is a section on minimum allowed wage payment to young workers, and also a list of allowed types of work for 14 and 15 year old's. The type of household helper tasks described definitely fell within what was allowed for child labor. The same page details what sort of forms need to be filled out. I think this is something that is done quite commonly. Here are specifics in New York State for minimum wage for minors and for employing 14 year olds. Here is what I was able to find: Yes, but there are special instructions for minors: Working hours: New York State labor laws are slightly more strict than the federal: https://www.labor.state.ny.us/workerprotection/laborstandards/workprot/nyvsfed.shtm Minimum wage: The Dept of Labor's Youth & Labor page states: Occupations such as babysitting are not subject to the minimum wage law. No supporting documentation is given. Another page describes the Youth Minimum Wage Program: A minimum wage of not less than $4.25 may be paid to employees under the age of 20 for their first 90 consecutive calendar days  However, I can't find any such exception in New York State minimum wage law. According to Publication 926, Household Employer's Tax Guide: Federal income tax withholding No, I am not required to withhold federal income taxes from a household employee.  If we both want them to be withheld, a W-4 should be submitted to me. State income tax withholding No, according to NYS Pub 27: Withholding income tax (federal or New York State) from wages paid to household employees is voluntary on your part and your employee Social security and medicare No, I am not required to withhold FICA taxes because when calculated wages, I should not include: An employee who is under the age of 18 at any time during the year.   Exception: Count these wages if providing household services is the   employee's principal occupation. If the employee is a student,   providing household services is not considered to be his or her   principal occupation. Unemployment insurance No, I don't think I have to pay federal unemployment tax.  I think the exception for FICA applies to FUTA.  For New York (according to Household Employers Guide for Unemployment Insurance), there is an exception for paying state unemployment insurance: Daytime students who attend elementary or high school (However, you must pay UI taxes on wages you pay these students if you are liable under FUTA.) I can't find any specific requirements, but aside from numbers of hours times rate of pay, you might want to consider the information required by the Wage Theft Prevention Act: Also, consider this requirements from the NY Minimum Wage Act Every employer shall keep true and accurate records of hours worked by   each employee covered by an hourly minimum wage rate, the wages paid   to all employees, and such other information as the commissioner deems   material and necessary, and shall, on demand, furnish to the   commissioner or his duly authorized representative a sworn statement   of the same.
An education. A new car. Houses are made bigger so that's not really fair. An article on here previously mentioned someone paying for a dependable car and a small apartment, along with school tuition working part time as a dishwasher.  Tuition at my closest state school (in state cost) is just under $9k per year. If you could only work 20 hours per week, amortized the school loan, payed $250 a month for an apartment with a roommate, $100 a month for utilities, $150 a month for groceries (all very difficult to achive and be healthy), you would have to make $15.35 an hour after taxes to do it without debt. This is assuming you don't have a car. Until they're old enough to be legally responsible for their own credit, the only thing you can really do is show them by example how to manage money and credit in your own finances.  Teach them budgeting, immerse them in understanding how credit and financing work, and teach them smart ways to make their money work for them. When they're teenagers, you could potentially approach small banks or credit unions about ways to perhaps co-sign loans for them and let them make payments to learn good habits for managing their responsibilities, but that's not always easy either.  It won't do anything for their credit, but having the responsibility of coming in to make payments might instill good habits and help their self-esteem at the same time. You have great intentions, but as has been pointed out here already, from a legal standpoint there's not much you can do.  All you can do is prepare them for the day when they are on their own and can enter into credit agreements.  Kids going to college get into real trouble with credit because cards are handed out like candy to them by the banks, so teaching them money management skills is invaluable and something you can do now. Very grey area. You can't pay them to run errands, mow the lawn, etc. I'd suggest that you would have to have self employment income (i.e. your own business) for you to justify the deduction. And then the work itself needs to be applicable to the business. I've commented here and elsewhere that I jumped on this when my daughter at age 12 started to have income from babysitting. I told her that in exchange for her taking the time to keep a notebook, listing the family paying her, the date, and amount paid, I'd make a deposit to a Roth IRA for her.  I've approaches taxes each year in a way that would be audit-compliant, i.e. a paper trail that covers any and all deductions, donations, etc. In the real world, the IRS isn't likely to audit someone for that Roth deposit, as there's little for them to recover. I received an allowance growing up.  There were stipulations on what I had to do with it that helped instill the values my parents wanted - in their case they were hoping to teach me to give money to my church, so I had a mandatory amount that I had to give when I received the allowance.  To this day I still give money to the church, so I guess it stuck. The allowance was tied to my doing some basic chores around the house - but loosely.  It wasn't a reward for doing those chores, but it would be taken away if I didn't do them.  Before I was of a legal working age I could do larger unusual tasks around the house for more money.   The relationship between chores and some form of allowance is, I think, tricky.  I don't think kids should be taught that the only reason to work is to earn money.  They won't earn money for keeping their future homes clean or by volunteering at the local food bank, but these are both good things to do.  At the same time it is good to teach that work has a reward and that lack of work means lack of a reward. My parents set up a savings account for me quite early.  Largely what went in there was birthday cash from relatives (a great thing to talk to any family members who might give your kids gifts about) and the income from my once-yearly sale of baked goods at a craft fair.  These were bigger amounts of money that I could take pride in depositing, and keeping them in a bank helped prevent me from spending them willy-nilly. I also got a credit card at the age of 16 (only allowed in some states in the US, not sure about internationally).  My parents oversaw my spending habits with it and made sure I always paid in full and on time.  The money I spent was tied to my summer work in high school and college.  I thought it was extremely valuable to learn how to manage a credit card before college when the card companies often seem to prey on young customers. Perhaps a technicality, but minors do not have the legal capacity to bind a contract. Making a purchase from a store is a contract. I'm not a lawyer and there may be case law to the contrary or that creates exceptions, but my understanding is that purchases made by a minor may be void if later challenged. JohnFx's answer is true from a practical sense. But if you get turned away at a store, understand that they're probably just being careful to avoid headaches later. "So, you only want people who are ""perfectly prepared"" to fit into your unique job opening...  Oh, and you want them to have a very specific set of ""Pre-Approved Stamps""; and for them to have been trained through their ""apprentice/journeyman"" years by *someone else*.  And, of course, you would like to hire these ""perfect candidates"" at entry-level wages.  **Good luck with that.** (Even if you do manage to GET such an employee, I can predict that you will generally NOT be keeping them long.)" Years ago I hired someone part time (not virtual however) to help me with all sorts of things.  Yes it helps free up some time. However particularly with finances, it does take a leap of faith.  If you have high value accounts that this person will be dealing with you can always get them bonded.  Getting an individual with a clean credit history and no criminal background bonded usually costs < $600 a year (depending on $ risk exposure). I would start out small with tasks that do not directly put that person in control of your money.  In my case I didn't have an official business, I worked a normal 9-5 job, but I owned several rental units, and an interest in a bar.  My assistant also had a normal 9-5 job and worked 5-10 hours a week for me on various things. Small stuff at first like managing my calendar, reminding me when bills were due, shipping packages, even calling to set up a hair cut. At some point she moved to contacting tenants, meeting with contractors, showing apartments, etc... I paid her a fixed about each week plus expenses. I would pay her extra if I needed her more (say showing an apartment on a Saturday, or meeting a plumber). She would handled all sorts of stuff for me, and I gave her the flexibility when needed to fit things in with her schedule. After about a month I did get her a credit card for expenses. Obviously a virtual assistant would not be able to do some of these things but I think you get the point.   Eventually when the trust had been built up I put her on most of my accounts and gave her some fiduciary responsibilities as well. I'm not sure that this level of trust would be possible to get to with a virtual assistant. However, with a virtual assistant you might be able to avoid one really big danger of hiring an assistant.... You see, several years later when I sold off my apartment buildings I no longer needed an assistant, so I married her. Now one good thing about that is I don't have to pay her now.   ;) I am quite sure you can set up an office in your basement for a lot less than $15,000. Don't build any walls, install any flooring, or upgrade the ceiling. Just install more lights and plugs. Set up your desks, bookshelves and what not in whatever corner is furthest from noises like the laundry room or the furnace. The kids and the nanny get the main floor - just let the whole living room be a giant playroom, for example. This gives you the separation you need to work at home, but you can hear if something really needs your attention.  When the kids go off to school, you can refinish the basement into a playroom for kids who don't always need supervision, using the money you are no longer spending on the nanny to install carpeting, real walls, a drop ceiling and so on. Your office stuff can move up to the main floor or to a spare room upstairs if you had one but it wasn't usable during the baby years when upstairs generally has to be quiet. As the kids get older the basement can get tailored to what preteens and teens like. This is essentially what we did, and our square footages and child counts match yours almost precisely. We did eventually convert our garage to carpeted and finished space, and it spent time as an office with staff coming in each day, then some time as a teen playroom (think video games and loud music) after the business rented office space outside the house, but if you don't intend to hire staff for your business you don't need to do this part. We did the majority of the basement wiring ourselves and got an electrician to hook it into the panel and check our work. The budget would probably be less than 10% of the guess from your real estate agent. It is subjective of course, but when I hire people I'd rather see a shit job for two months than nothing at all.  Not that I'm planning to give the prospective employee shit work, just that they're not lazy. "Completely linear?  We don't do that. Our daughter has a fixed allowance, and we expect a certain amount of help around the house as being part of the family.  We don't make any explicit ties between the two, and we don't seem to have any problems. We bought an eBay lot of Polly Pockets and divided them up into $5 bags.  (This is a better deal that what we could get in the store new.)  Her allowance isn't enough that she can ""buy"" one every week. After sensing her frustration we gave her the opportunity to earn some more money by doing extra work.  It happened to be cleaning up after our dogs in the back yard, a chore we had neglected for quite a while.  She stuck with the job, and truly earned that money.  (She'll be six in January.)  What's more, it was a good deal for me.  It needed to be done, and I didn't really want to do it. :) So, for now this seems like a fair balance.  It prevents her from getting the idea that she won't work unless she gets paid, but she also knows that working harder does have its rewards. We still have time to teach her the idea of working smarter. (This isn't a formal study.  It's just my experience.)" "I mean, best of luck for this company, but there are empirical reasons why many companies do not strongly favor very old employees.  From a business perspective, it doesn't make sense to hire someone unless they are the best for their job. Anything else is not really ""business"" and is more on the charity/socialism side of things." Math time.  24 means 2 years out of college, or 6 years out of highschool, the latter being much more plausible given the poster's content quality.  $100k / 6 = $16.7k/year  16.7k / 52 weeks = $321/week  $321 / (11/hr * (1 - 15% taxes)) = 34 hours per week.  So he worked 34 hours per week, without fail, for 6 years, with NO expenses of any kind whatsoever.   OR, much more likely, he managed to save only $10k, not $100k in 6 years. so you have any LEGAL experience to back that up?  Yeah I do get there are exceptions to the rule, like minister, however the christian plumber.. i think you are full of it.  There is no need, or relgious basis you can use on why you had to hire only religious plumbers. WIth a priest it is obvious.  OF COURSE You can discriminate when the person you are hiring cant do the job. An atheist minister couldnt do the job. An athiest plumber can. A Guy with no arms cant toss pizza dough. You can not hire him and say it is due to his handicap. I need someone to throw pizza dough. You have to prove they cant do the job you need them for in order to LEGALLY discriminate. I'm sore but the MAJORITY OF AMERICANS don't want to wash dishes as a career choice. My goodness even if you are the son or daughter of a well of family they don't actually expect their kiddo to work hard. This is HARD work we are taking about, laboring in sun, hot dishwashing, waking up at 4am to clean rooms. I have just never seen a well off family do work like this. It's really for poor Americans but let me tell a single mom can't survive on season work, temporary, no benefits all hours. It just isn't work for any American who wants to be successful. But no worries all hear jobs will go to AI in the future anyway!!! Then there will a crap ton more out of work👌 That's not a valid counterpoint.    It doesn't rub you the right way because it would require you to take responsibility for your own future and do the work yourself.  It doesn't rub you the right way because it would mean that you couldn't blame anyone else if you weren't able to retire when you wanted to.