How to employ my wife

carlito1

Hi , I'm self employed as a tiler and my wife answers the home phone , washes my clothes , calls work enquiries,  keeps my receipts in order etc . I thought she could be self employed without the need to do a tax return as under the threshold  but after reading it seems I may have to employ her as paye , is this the case and how complicated is it for a sole trader like me to set up ? 
Many thanks 
Carl

ElefantEd

Just think how much fun you could have though: make her write a job application, interview her, give her perforance reviews every two weeks, deny her holiday requests. Worth every bit of hassle!

General_Grant

carlito1 said:

Hi , I'm self employed as a tiler and my wife answers the home phone , washes my clothes , calls work enquiries,  keeps my receipts in order etc . I thought she could be self employed without the need to do a tax return as under the threshold  but after reading it seems I may have to employ her as paye , is this the case and how complicated is it for a sole trader like me to set up ? 
Many thanks 
Carl

As she keeps receipts in order and so, presumably can keep financial records, you could ask her to investigate things on the HMRC website.

Dox

carlito1 said:

Hi , I'm self employed as a tiler and my wife answers the home phone , washes my clothes , calls work enquiries,  keeps my receipts in order etc . I thought she could be self employed without the need to do a tax return as under the threshold  but after reading it seems I may have to employ her as paye , is this the case and how complicated is it for a sole trader like me to set up ? 
Many thanks 
Carl

Very easy indeed. Free HMRC software does your payroll (https://www.gov.uk/basic-paye-tools) and the HMRC website gives all the info you need to register for PAYE: https://www.gov.uk/register-employer.

Might be worth asking your accountant whether it would be a good idea to register as a limited company - these days it is simple and inexpensive to do and requires little more effort than being self employed - and both you and she could be employees of that.

Grassy_Knollington

You will also be providing her a pension

carlito1

Great answers thanks!