October 06th, 2020

What is a Private Hire Caregiver?

Surprisingly, many families who seek in-home care and health care professionals looking for an older adult (or patient) to care for are not familiar with the term, Private Hire Caregiver. 

A Private Hire Caregiver is hired and employed by the older adult or patient (or perhaps reports to a designated family member) to whom they are providing in-home care services for and are not employed through a home care services agency.

Families who do have familiarity with the term private hire or private caregiver may have sought out "independent 1099 caregivers" to work as a contractor and not as their employee. 

Some families often agree to pay these 'independent 1099 contractors' cash for the in-home care service and IRS taxes are not being withheld.  This is a very dangerous way to 'hire' a Caregiver and is considered tax evasion. 

The IRS automatically classifies a Private Hire Caregiver (or Domestic Worker) an employee and not an independent contractor if they are paid more than 2100 in a year.

The danger in seeking out Caregivers who want families to pay them cash or ask not to withhold taxes poses a huge risk for the families who need in-home care services. If your domestic worker is injured while performing their duties and applies for workers' compensation or disability the IRS will discover you were not paying taxes on your employee. If they quit or are fired they may also seek out unemployment benefits. The risk of paying fines, legal fees, doctor's fees, and back taxes is too great and is not worth the risk and legal issues.

If you want to learn more about how you can hire a private caregiver as a direct-hire from a licensed and insured reputable home care services placement agency we would love to help. We can walk you through how you can hire a private caregiver legally, and we'll even do all of the leg work for you to find the right Caregiver.

by Jeanna Zivalich

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