Employing your Care Professional: What Does it Entail?

by | Jan 9, 2020 | Australia, Top Tips

Welcome to a New Year and to a New Decade!

We want to kick off the year by providing you with some advice about becoming an employer to your new caregiver.

We recommend you consult the relevant industry bodies or an accountant, to ensure that the employment relationship you are about to set up with your caregiver, who is on a working holiday visa is legal and above board.

There are a number of steps you will have to complete before your caregiver arrives, which include registering as a business and obtaining an ABN and registering as an employer of working holiday makers so that you don’t have to pay the higher tax rate for the care professional.

You need to think about how many hours you would like your live-in carer to work as this will be the difference between paying Super or not. And identify if you’d like to make any deductions for room and board.

You’ll want to make sure that your care professional is looked after by paying the correct wages, tax and Super (if applicable), and you want to be sure that the employment contract is fair. You want to be doing the right thing by your employee and by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).

If things are set-up correctly from the get-go the relationship between you, as the host family and employer, and the care professional, as the employee and caregiver, should be smooth sailing!

At Apex Professional Exchange we help families and carers to set this up and provide them with some guidance throughout the process.