K M W
Employee Tax Expert

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Yes, you absolutely can hire your child to work in your business! In fact, it can offer some significant tax benefits for both you and your child, in addition to providing your child with valuable work experience and teaching them financial responsibility.

 

However, there are important rules and considerations you must follow to ensure compliance with tax laws and child labor laws. The IRS is vigilant about ensuring that these arrangements are legitimate business expenses and not just a way to shift income to avoid taxes.

 

You mention that  your daughter is four years old.  What work would she be doing for the business?  Keep in mind that the employment has to be legitimate employment - in other words, you can't just decide to pay your child from your business and the child not perform any actual work.  You would need to make sure that you are paying a fair wage for the work performed.   So, hiring your daughter to be a receptionist probably wouldn't work based on her age. But let's say you were going to hire her to be a model for an ad you were creating - in that situation it would be proper to pay a reasonable pay for that work performed.

 

Keep in mind you need to comply with any federal, state or local laws regarding the employment of minors. You would also have to consider payroll taxes that may come into play and the additional responsibility of payroll reporting such as Withholding requirements and W-2 reporting requirements.

 

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