If you hire people to work in your home -- such as nannies, private nurses, or housecleaners -- then you’re a household employer. You’re responsible for filing the proper taxes and getting the right paperwork to your employees if you pay them over $2,000 for the year (as of 2016).

Now that it’s tax season, be sure you’re providing your domestic workers with the proper paperwork. Start with the following information to ensure a stress-free tax season.

A household employer may lawfully employ a U.S. citizen, green card holder, or a non-immigrant with an approved Employment Authorization Document (EAD). All employers must complete USCIS Form I-9 with their newly hired employees at time of hire to verify that the individual is properly authorized to work in the United States.

Identifying individuals who are authorized to work in the U.S. can be confusing for household employers, as many individuals are legally present in the United States yet are not authorized to work, and others are NOT lawfully present in the US yet they do have (temporary) authorization to work.

Organizing senior care at home for your mother can be an overwhelming process that is emotional and frought with a lot of big decisions. Once you have done your research and you’ve helped your mother privately hire a caregiver, you’ll have to figure out proper payment solutions for your mom’s caregiver. Not only are there weekly  pay checks to coordinate, but there are also a variety of payroll taxes that need to be calculated and factored in. If this is your first time figuring it all out, it can be incredibly complicated and you may not know where to begin.

It's tax season! Feeling overwhelmed? Do demands feel like they never stops and tasks just keep piling up? To-do lists are ongoing for most people and sometimes it seems like the list just keeps getting longer from week to week. Sometimes there simply just isn’t enough time to get everything done. Even if you do have time to check everything off your to-do list, it is often easier to hire someone else to complete certain tasks for you.

Outsourcing things is a good way to delegate certain parts of your life – especially things that you are not good at or are unfamiliar with. This will not only save you time but it can sometimes save you from big headaches later down the road. For example, if you have a nanny working with your family, you know how important it is to prepare end of year taxes accurately and in a timely manner. If you don’t, you could end up facing steep fines or other fees for errors that could have been avoided if you just outsourced the task in the first place.

Did you know that many states have mandated that household employers have a Worker’s Compensation Insurance Policy?

There are various legal requirements for obtaining this insurance which will vary widely from state to state. Most often, the job description is not the defining item. Instead, wages paid or hours worked will be. Even if your state does not require you to have worker's compensation insurance, smart employers obtain this important protection anyway to protect the family's assets and the household employee in the event of a workplace injury.

Is it time to find a nanny for your family? This is arguably one of the biggest and most important decisions that you will make as a parent. It can be difficult narrowing down your candidates once you have reviewed their resumes, but once you have done that, you’ll need to spend some time getting to know each one during an in-depth interview process. This is probably the most important step when you’re going through the process of hiring a new caregiver for your home.  

If you are a CPA at this time of year, you are hoping and praying that your clients with nannies have their documents in order. Your fingers are crossed that your clients have tracked their nanny’s hours worked, paychecks paid, and all with their Social Security and Medicare taxes withheld. You really hope they have already done their quarterly unemployment tax filings and issued their nanny's W-2. Unfortunately, the odds are not in your favor. Most nanny employers either are not fully aware of the responsibilities of household employment or lack the time to handle these obligations, which leads to hours and hours of extra work on the part of you, their CPA.

Many families have a regular babysitter or nanny, or even a babysitter to help over school holidays. This extra set of hands caring for your children allows you to meet your obligations professionally and as a parent.  Do you pay your babysitter or in-home childcare provider cash, thinking this is just babysitting and never considering payroll taxes? Have you wondered if babysitter taxes even exist? They do – and if you fail to pay them and the IRS finds out, this could result in some hefty penalties or fines.

But, don’t panic right away.

If you pay your babysitter less than $2000 a year (2016), you will be exempt. But, if your babysitter is 18 or older and you end up paying more than that amount, the IRS will consider this a household employment situation and you will need to calculate babysitter taxes into your budget.