<p>Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for my housekeeper she sets her hours, I have never trained her (I just open the door and she does her magic), and I do not supervise her. </p>
<p>It may be different in other parts of the country but here there are employment agencies for housekeepers. (I am not talking about healthcare workers. They do have agencies that supervise and collect fees on an ongoing basis). There are agencies that specialize in highend (couples, butlers and major domos) and others that specialize in live ins on the low end. Agencies collect a fee and then they are done with the transaction. The next contact the agency has with the customer or the help is when new help is needed. Daily help is generally word of mouth. Gardeners kind of have a territory. And they keep their own books. There are no agencies that represent gardeners.</p>
<p>Employment agencies may differ in Iowa where I suspect there might be a scarcity of help. One might employ a cleaning service (whole different ballgame). But the issue has been brought up numerous times and under the circumstances here, it is a cash only society.</p>
<p>ellebud, it is not a case of what is common practice in your locale that determines if she is an employee or an independent contractor, it it IRS code. </p>
<p>If you pay the agency to provide you with a housekeeper AND they pay her, then the agency is her employer and everything is cool. </p>
<p>But if you are paying her directly you are her employer. Tango14 is right, it is a long checklist that determines if she is an independent contractor. And the burden falls on the employer to show that she is an independent contractor. Most of the time household employees are considered employees. If she is a an independent contractor and you pay her more then $600 a year, you must send her a 1099-misc every January.</p>
<p>There have been a number of high profile cases of politicians getting caught on this, (“Nannygate”) so the IRS has a pretty clear set of rules for this.</p>