{"id":20615,"date":"2017-06-14T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hrblock.com\/tax-center\/"},"modified":"2023-08-29T08:40:52","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T13:40:52","slug":"household-employment-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hrblock.com\/tax-center\/filing\/personal-tax-planning\/household-employment-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"Household Employment Taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The IRS usually considers you an employer of a person when both of these apply:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You hired the person to work in your home.<\/li>\n<li>You have control over how the person performs the work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These employees include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Housekeepers<\/li>\n<li>Maids<\/li>\n<li>Nannies<\/li>\n<li>Gardeners<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As an employer, you might have to pay employment taxes &#8212; also known as the nanny tax. Employment taxes you might have to pay include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Social Security tax<\/li>\n<li>Medicare tax<\/li>\n<li>Federal unemployment tax<\/li>\n<li>State unemployment tax (varies by state)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Social Security and Medicare<\/b><\/p>\n<p>If you pay a household employee cash wages of $1,900 or more in 2025, those cash wages are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Social Security wages<\/li>\n<li>Medicare wages<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It doesn&#8217;t matter when the employee earned the wages. You&#8217;ll owe Social Security and Medicare taxes on all of those wages.<\/p>\n<p>If you paid the employee less than $1,900 in cash wages in 2025, none of the wages are Social Security and Medicare wages. You won&#8217;t owe Social Security or Medicare tax on those wages.<\/p>\n<p>The rules regarding payment of Social Security and Medicare taxes don&#8217;t apply to your:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Employees under age 18<\/li>\n<li>Children under age 21<\/li>\n<li>Spouse<\/li>\n<li>Parents, in many cases<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Federal unemployment tax (FUTA)<\/b><\/p>\n<p>You might have paid household employees for cash wages of $1,000 or more in a calendar quarter of 2025 or the previous year. FUTA wages are the first $7,000 of cash wages paid to each household employee in 2025 and 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Calendar quarters include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>January through March<\/li>\n<li>April through June<\/li>\n<li>July through September<\/li>\n<li>October through December<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If your employee&#8217;s cash wages reach $7,000 during the year, don&#8217;t figure FUTA tax on the wages you pay the employee for the rest of the year.<\/p>\n<p>The cash wages you paid in 2025 might still be FUTA wages if both of these apply:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The cash wages paid are less than $1,000 in each calendar quarter of 2025.<\/li>\n<li>You had a household employee in 2024.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>They&#8217;re FUTA wages if the cash wages you paid to household employees in any calendar quarter of 2024 were $1,000 or more.<\/p>\n<p>The rules regarding payment of federal unemployment tax don&#8217;t apply to your:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Children under age 21<\/li>\n<li>Spouse<\/li>\n<li>Parent<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You&#8217;re not required to withhold federal income tax, but you can if your employee requests it.<\/p>\n<p>You must file a separate W-2: Wage and Tax Statement for each household employee you pay either of these:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Social Security and Medicare wages of $1,900 or more for tax year 2025<\/li>\n<li>Wages you withheld federal income tax from<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You might need to file Schedule H with your individual return to report household employment taxes. Do this if, in 2025, you paid any of these:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cash wages of $1,900 or more to any one household employee<\/li>\n<li>FUTA wages &#8212; total cash wages of $1,000 or more in any calendar quarter to all household employees<\/li>\n<li>Wages to household employees you withheld federal income tax from<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you have to file Schedule H or a W-2, you must have an employer identification number (EIN). You can get one by either:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Filing Form SS-4: Application for Employer Identification Number<\/li>\n<li>Applying online at www.irs.gov<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To learn more, see Publication 926: Household Employer&#8217;s Tax Guide at www.irs.gov.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The IRS usually considers you an employer of a person when both of these apply: You hired the person to work in your home. You have control over how the person performs the work. These employees include: Housekeepers Maids Nannies Gardeners As an employer, you might have to pay employment taxes &#8212; also known as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-tax-planning","category-filing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<title>Household Employment Taxes | H&amp;R Block<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn more about the rules for household employee taxes and get tax answers at H&amp;R Block.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hrblock.com\/tax-center\/filing\/personal-tax-planning\/household-employment-tax\/\" 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