Nanny Taxes...To Pay or Not to Pay?

A few weeks ago, while struggling and feeling frustrated with the whole process of preparing tax return info for our nanny, I put out a status update on Facebook:

looking for people who pay their Nanny as W-2, want to comapre  wages/benefits...come on, I can't be the ONLY one ;-)

Well, it turns out I'm not the only one, which was nice to see. I didn't feel like a complete idiot.

But, what was interesting were some of the perspectives that arose (on both sides) as to why one should or shouldn't pay the taxes.

You can read some (couldn't get everything in the screen shot) of the comments written on the status itself here in the graphic, but also received more than one email on the other side of the equation. Here's one of them:

Jer,


I'm actually quite shocked that all of those people actually pay taxes to their nanny. I would have wagered that out of your 8000 friends, the 50 or so that had nannies, my guess would have be 5%.

I would never actually say it in public but I was nodding, yes Jeremy you are the only one that pays nanny taxes. Maybe its the number of illegals around or that my wife doesn't work so we have a very part time nanny but it never occured to me to do it on a legit basis.

Maybe its because I will never run for office but my nanny, housekeeper, gardener....Straight Cash, homey!

 Open to comments and your thoughts on this one...

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