Many employers use background checks as a regular part of their hiring processes. But “many” does not mean “all.” In fact, recent research conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management indicates smaller businesses tend to skip this important hiring step. Among companies with fewer than 100 employees, fewer than half conduct criminal background checks on job candidates vs. 83% for employers with at least 2,500 employees. Background checks can be particularly helpful in the household employment world too. After all, if you hire a nanny don’t you want to know about the person caring for your child(ren)?

Finding the perfect nanny to work with your family is an exciting and rewarding experience. Once you’ve found the person that you want to hire, you’ll need to verify your nanny’s work eligibility and be sure that she can work legally in the United States.

Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), individual income tax rates generally go down for 2018 through 2025. But that doesn’t necessarily mean your income tax liability will go down. The TCJA also makes a lot of changes to tax breaks for individuals, reducing or eliminating some while expanding others. The total impact of all of these changes is what will ultimately determine whether you see reduced taxes. One interrelated group of changes affecting many taxpayers are those to personal exemptions, standard deductions and the child credit.

You’ve had a baby and your maternity leave has probably gone faster than you thought it would! The clock is ticking and soon, you’ll have to start thinking about heading back to work. Many new moms worry about how the transition will go when you leave your baby with a nanny during the day. You may be struggling with how the transition will go, not just for you, but your baby. Leaving your baby with someone new for the first several times is definitely hard at first, but both you and your baby will adjust quickly if you follow some of these helpful steps.

Here are some of the key tax-related deadlines affecting businesses during the first quarter of 2018. Keep in mind that this list isn’t all-inclusive, so there may be additional deadlines that apply to you. Most of these are for you independent CPAs and/or those working with clients’ businesses. Household employer tax deadlines vary by state.

HomeWork Solutions clients can count on the W-2 being filed correctly. If you or your clients are making any filings other than Forms W-2 from the below list for household employer taxes please give us a call. We love to educate on household payroll tax filings.

If you itemize your deductions when you’re filing taxes, you may be able to deduct certain expenses that were paid to your in-home caregiver. If you are trying to determine what portion of in-home caregiver expenses can be deducted, there are several stipulations that you should know about. As always, do consult a qualified personal income tax preparer to help with the details, but here is a quick guide to some caregiver tax deductions.

As mentioned in Family Office Hot Topics, technology is becoming a huge part of the family office day-to-day routine. Reporting systems can give families and advisors access to real time data anywhere in the world and security concerns associated with cloud services are all but gone. Modernizing how your office does business is especially important as second and third generations start their own families; everyone knows how we millennials like our screens and instant gratification! Donny Shimamoto (Intraprise Technologies) gave us a good overview of how to integrate new technologies into the family office.

If you’re considering hiring a nanny and you’re determining how much you want to pay, you should also factor in the cost of hiring a nanny payroll service that will have your back. A partner to help make sure you have everything covered in terms of payroll, taxes, and benefits. By hiring a nanny payroll service that you can trust, you’ll have peace of mind that hardworking payroll specialists are working to make sure you have everything in order the first time, so there are no surprises when it comes to tax time.

On December 20th, Congress passed the largest federal tax reform law in more than 30 years. Commonly called the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” (TCJA), the new law means substantial changes for individual taxpayers and businesses alike.

We’ve broken down some of the key provisions for both.