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Get someone else to do it
Many people find this simpler. Your Local Authority may
provide a payroll service, otherwise they should be able to
give you contact details of a local payroll service or
accountant or bookkeeper who will then carry out the
calculations for paying wages, statutory payments, tax and
National Insurance based on information provided by you.
However, you will probably have to pay for this service.
It is important that you check exactly what services are being
offered because even if you choose a payroll company to
assist you, as an employer you remain responsible for ensuring the correct
amount of tax and NIC is deducted and paid to HMRC.
Find out more about using a payroll provider in the ‘Setting things up’ section of
our website:
www.disabilitytaxguide.org.uk
Doing it yourself – first steps
If you need to run a payroll, then the first thing you will need to do is register as
an employer with HMRC and get a PAYE scheme reference number. To do this by
telephone, the phone number is 0300 200 3211. For those who are deaf or
hearing or speech impaired it is: 0300 200 3212 (Textphone).
Once the HMRC adviser has taken your basic details and understands the nature
of your ‘business’ (i.e. that you an employer of a person in your home rather
than a commercial enterprise) then they should ask you if you want to use paper
or an electronic software system to keep your pay records and send information
to HMRC.
In a nutshell, the two different options are:
• Running your payroll electronically which will involve reporting information
about your employee and how much they have earned, on or before each of
their pay dates (HMRC have some free software that you can use to do this or
there are many other payroll packages available, some of which are also free)
• Running your payroll manually – i.e. using paper forms to report the
information to HMRC four times a year.
To use paper you must qualify for a concession. To check you are eligible to
use a paper payroll and reporting system before you telephone HMRC, read their
‘Guidance for employers exempt from filing or unable to file online’:
www.gov.uk/find-out-which-employers-are-exempt-from-online-payroll-reporting
We look at the different options in a bit more detail and the advantages and
disadvantages of both in the next section.
page 25 Taking on a personal assistant – a basic guide • Paying wages
