Protecting Employee Personally Identifiable Information

Household employers have legitimate needs to collect and maintain their household employee’s confidential data.  All employers, and their agents, are legally responsible to protect this information and prevent its access by unauthorized individuals.

Efforts at the state level to write and pass legislation to increase the legal rights and protections of domestic service workers - nannies, elder caregivers, housekeepers and others - have increased dramatically in recent months.

Aging adults increasingly want to remain independent and age in their own home.  Grandma or grandpa are really happy living at home and don't want to move out.  Their family and loved ones worry, however, because they are not able to completely take care of themselves on their own.  It is time to objectively assess the senior's abilities and limitations, and to develop a future care plan that helps them to safely age in place.

Many families that hire a senior or elder caregiver to care for a loved one want to document the arrangement so that all parties - the senior caregiver, the supervising family member, other family members and the senior receiving the care - all understand the terms and scope of the employment agreement. This is a best practice at all times! You will want this document to restate the terms of employment, including hours and wages, and to memoralize the items you originally agreed upon with the caregiver. So what do you need to include in this senior caregiver work agreement?

Direct hiring of senior caregivers by families continues to increase, and families have questions about minimum wage, overtime and whether to pay the elder caregiver when they are sleeping. US News and World Report recently noted that "by a 9-to-1 ratio, people prefer to stay in their homes as they get older rather than moving into an institution." They often become household employers as they hire individual home-care workers to help them age in place.

HomeWork Solutions has experienced a dramatic increase in the volume of calls from employers of undocumented household workers in the past weeks.  The extensive media coverage of Washington’s renewed, bipartisan commitment to implement comprehensive immigration reform - and create a path to citizenship for undocumented workers - raises questions for families employing undocumented domestic service workers.

The IRS reports that audits of tax returns with income over $200,000 increased by 13% in 2012 over the prior year. The Wall Street Journal's Market Watch recently published advice on 5 steps to take to avoid an IRS audit on your Federal income tax return.

Q. The W-2 deadline has passed by and you haven’t gotten yours? What to do?

IRS requires employers to post mark W-2 Forms no later than January 31^st. 
The IRS encourages you to allow at least until February 15^th for the form to be delivered. They recommend you contact your employer at the earliest possible date to confirm that they have your current address if you have moved in the last year.

Q. ¿La fecha límite para recibir tu W-2 ha pasado y aún no la has recibido? ¿Qué hacer?

El IRS requiere que los empleadores entreguen el Formulario W-2 a sus empleados a más tardar el 31 de enero.  Recomienda a los empleados, así mismo, que si éste no ha sido recibido dentro de la fecha límite, se de un plazo adicional hasta el 15 de febrero para presentar su reclamo ante el IRS.  Primero debe contactar a su empleador para confirmar que tiene la dirección actual, en caso se haya mudado en el último año.

More and more older Americans are choosing to live in their homes for as long as possible, or aging in place. The senior who wants to stay in their own home often needs some non-medical assistance to meet this goal, including help with housekeeping, driving, cooking, and even some activities of daily living such as dressing and bathing.