Sheet 05 · Hire it yourself
If I hire a caregiver myself, do I have to pay taxes?
If I hire a caregiver myself, do I have to pay taxes is the question that shows up after the neighbor says she knows someone. This sheet is a map. It quotes the IRS and Missouri as they print the 2026 figures. It does not compute a payroll. It does not invent a contract. It does not tell you that you are in the clear. If the person is your household employee, the public pages say you may owe employment taxes once you cross the thresholds. Read the pages. Then ask a professional.
Am I an employer if I hire a private caregiver in Missouri?
The IRS does not use your job title on the fridge. Topic 756 says household employees include housekeepers, maids, babysitters, gardeners, and others who perform household work in or around your private residence as your employee. Repairmen and contractors who provide services as independent contractors are not your employees. The test: household workers are your employees if you can control not only the work they do, but also how they do it. A caregiver you schedule, whose tasks you set, who works in your parent’s house the way you direct, is the kind of worker that sentence is about. A company that sends an employee is a different lane. If you are not sure which you have, stop and ask a tax professional before you write the first check.
Family Caregiver Alliance’s hiring sheet is the same fork in plainer words: in the private-hire lane, you are responsible for all aspects of being an employer, including payroll and taxes. FCA also says all U.S. employees must complete Form I-9, that a W-4 is completed to set up payroll, and that you will have to apply for an employer ID number. Check your renter’s or homeowner’s insurance. Those are FCA’s items, not this desk’s invention.
The federal thresholds, 2026, in the IRS’s words
Publication 926, the Household Employer’s Tax Guide for 2026, says social security and Medicare taxes apply to the wages of household workers you pay $3,000 or more in cash wages in 2026. The social security tax rate is 6.2% each for the employee and the employer, the social security wage base limit is $184,500, and the Medicare tax rate is 1.45% each, with no wage base limit. Topic 756 repeats the $3,000 figure and says you generally must withhold 6.2% plus 1.45% (7.65%) unless you prefer to pay the employee’s share from your own funds, and you must also pay your share of 7.65%. Cash wages include wages you pay by check or money order.
FUTA is separate. Topic 756 says if you paid cash wages to household employees totaling more than $1,000 in any calendar quarter during the calendar year or the prior year, you generally must pay federal unemployment tax on the first $7,000 of cash wages you pay to each household employee. Do not withhold FUTA from the employee. You pay it. The FUTA tax is 6%; you may be able to take a credit of up to 5.4% for amounts paid into state unemployment funds, for a net of 0.6%. Do not count wages paid to your spouse, your child under 21, or your parent, for FUTA. Topic 756 also lists FICA exceptions: your spouse, your child under 21, your parent unless an exception is met, and an employee under 18 unless household work is the principal occupation.
If you must withhold and pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, or if you withhold federal income tax, you will need Form W-2 and an EIN. You file Schedule H with your Form 1040. You are not required to withhold federal income tax unless the employee asks and you agree. Those are the IRS’s forms. This desk does not fill them out.
Missouri unemployment, for a domestic employer
The Missouri Division of Employment Security says an employer of a domestic or household worker in a private home becomes liable when it pays $1,000 in cash wages in a calendar quarter, or becomes liable under FUTA and employs a worker in Missouri, or is determined to be a successor to a liable Missouri employer. You need to notify the Division within 30 days from the date the employing unit becomes liable, online or by form. The federal FUTA trigger and the Missouri domestic trigger are not the same sentence. Read both. Then ask a professional which one you have crossed.
What should be in a home care agreement before I sign?
FCA says if you hire privately you will need a contract, and that you can use the job description as the basis, or contact an attorney. The contract, in FCA’s list, should have the employer’s name, the attendant’s name, address, phone, Social Security number, wages, reimbursement rules, what paperwork you want kept, expectations for behavior, grounds for termination, and a date and signatures. This desk will not draft that document. It will not invent a sample. For a lawyer in good standing in Missouri who is accepting new clients, use the Missouri Bar LawyerSearch. The Missouri Bar also says, on a different page, that you do not need a lawyer to complete its free health-care power of attorney form. A household-employment contract is not that form. Do not mix them.
How to write a caregiver job description for an elderly parent
FCA’s hiring sheet is the outline: training desired, driving, transferring, experience with memory problems, language, housekeeping, pets, smoking, hours. Be specific about the tasks. “Help with bathing” is better than “help out.” “Tuesday and Thursday, 8am to 12pm” is better than “a few hours.” Hours belong on the next sheet. The job description is what you attach to the contract and what you hand the person on day one. Write it before you interview, not after you have already said yes.
Who pays for the hours, if you are not writing personal checks forever, is not this sheet. Paying for Care STL is the sister desk that names those doors (Medicare, Medicaid, VA, long-term care insurance, private pay) and still prints no rate. This sheet is only the employer map for the hire-it-yourself lane.
The Eldercare Locator, 800-677-1116, can point you at local aging offices. Aging Ahead covers St. Louis County. FCA notes that local Area Agencies on Aging sometimes know about help filing tax statements for household employees. Ask. Do not assume.
If this employer lane is more paperwork than you wanted this week, the agency lane is still open. New Plan Care is one independently owned non-medical company in Chesterfield; the two-lane sheet is how you switch without treating a paid slot as a verdict.
What to do tonight
- Open Publication 926 and Topic 756. Write the 2026 $3,000 and $1,000 figures on your pad.
- Open the Missouri liability page and write the domestic $1,000-in-a-quarter line next to them.
- Write the job description from FCA’s list, including days and hours.
- If you are still in this lane in the morning, find a tax professional and, if the agreement is more than a page of tasks, a lawyer through LawyerSearch.
- If this lane is more employer than you wanted, switch to the agency lane. That is allowed.
When to ask the care team or the doctor
Nothing on this page is a medical judgment. Whether a parent needs skilled care, whether a household employee should be giving reminders from a labeled box rather than touching a dose, and whether driving is still safe are questions for the physician. A tax form does not answer them. If the work in the house is nursing work, you are in the wrong lane: that is home health, ordered by a doctor, on the home health sheet.
Sources opened 10 September 2026. Full list on the sources page.