Paying cleaners etc

Penny
01/10/2013 - 11:19

I've just been looking into this whole subject when someoen mentioned the new voucher system. Basically buy vouchers from the tabacchi in multiples of €10 showing your tessera sanitaria or codice fiscale and then on the INPS website register the time the person worked to activate the vouchers. The person can then have the vouchers and cash them in at the tabacchi. A €10 voucher gives the employee €7.50. This is becuase this form of payment automatically makes the deduction of INPS and INAIL. No contracts needed or partita IVA etc. Seems like a great idea to me!

Comment

Penny I am pretty sure that most 'cleaners' will say thanks but no thanks to this option, as cash in hand is the way they wish to be paid as nearly all work on the black. Yes it covers your back, but a cleaner who doesn't get much anyway will not thank you for a 25% reduction in their pay and I think they will find another 'employer' PDQ.

In reply to by Flip

as, actually most people expect "regular" treatment these days.We did not go down the route of the voucher system which is more suited to more occasional situations so both our workers are on contracts all be it" tempo determinato"(01/01>31/12)and not full time however at the busier times of year reach wage packet gross salaries with tax and INPS paid on top of up to around E.1.400.any kind of business found with uninsured workers ( and the: "i'm not working,i'm just a friend/ visiting /passing by etc on the part of anyone "found" by controls doesn't work.courts now take the line that they were workers unless otherwise proved) so it's all very delicate.The authorities actions are becoming ever more capillary and a functionary from the work inspectorate who made a control here said textually "should we ever find uninsured workers here you would be risking your property"This referred to the enormous fines that are levied in such cases which thru complex calculations could easily arrive in"small" cases to E.50.000,00.The "old man" scenario has also changed as pensioners risk even losing their pension if they are caught working in the black.Admittedly all this does not particularly refer to private house situations or brits them selves working in the black but things are changing very fast on this front and during some inspections made on brit properties being used for holiday houses in this area during the summer resulted more complicated as people were also found working there..

Actually I was looking as mine want to do it 'properly' and we were trying to figure out the best way to do it without incurring huge overheads. With the new redditometro I think most people will finder it harder to stay in the black.......

If you are employing cleaners as part of your business of 'looking after' houses then yes, you have a moral duty to ensure that you and your employees pay taxes on income; but if you are like many here who rent their property out for short term Summer rentals and have a friend/neighbour looking after the cleaning etc then I still hold with the point that if you pay them with vouchers your cleaner will either stop doing the cleaning or you will find that it takes longer to clean your property so they can claim more hours to recoup the difference.

Flip - renting your house out is regarded by the tax man as an activity (if not a business, depending on your circumstances). As Sebastiano says the days of 'winging it' are definitely coming to an end. Everyone has to do a tax return and you can pay people in a variety of ways not just the voucher but also as a 'lavoratore autonomo occasionale' whereby the worker just puts the income under the 'other income' section of their tax return so long as they earn less than 5k from it and you pay no contributions at all. If they have a low income then they won't pay tax on it anyway. I have just had the situation where a crazy guest (don't ask - long story) is threatening to sue me so my housekeepers must be on the books because if the crazy woman did decide to sue over €25 as she claims she will, then the fines are very big if I am found to have unregistered workers. The housekeepers will get fined too. If we have to pay more, then so be it. It's still cheaper than a fine from the taxman!

I think that the times of "work on the black" are gone and most governments, at least in Europe, are establishing tight controls. In Spain, as from last July, if you employ a cleaner, even for an hour a week, you have to declare it to Social Security and pay all the necessary charges. on the other hand, some employers have decided not to have cleaners, unless absolutely necessary, to avoid the red tape... in times of crisis, the result has been higher unemployment... I would not dream of having cleaners working on the black. If there is the slightest accident the employer will have a nasty judicial problem.