A family member can be a parent, young person 16 years or older, spouse, sibling or any other relative, that lives in the same house as the person getting support, or they can live outside the family or whanau home.
Yes. Anyone who has been allocated Individualised Funding by their NASC can employ a family member that lives with them to support them. Family members must be paid inline with the rules relating to Pay equity and minimum wage requirements.
There are a few options for a family member who lives with you to get paid for the support they provide.
It is possible to be the Agent (employer) and the Employee (person getting paid) however this requires either a contracting (sole trader) arrangement, or a separate entity with a different IRD number as the Employer. Both of these options have tax implications, and if you set up a separate entity to be the Employer we recommend strongly that you seek tax advice from an accountant.
If you choose Individualised Funding with Manawanui, you will have three choices:
1. Appoint another person as an Agent to act as the employer, and use the payroll service to get paid each fortnight using your IF budget. The employer can be anyone (husband, cousin, aunt, uncle, friend etc) except yourself because you need separate IRD numbers. We will process all your tax and employment related costs such as ACC levies, Kiwisaver and annual leave accruals. This is by FAR the easiest way to do it.
2. The second option is to set yourself up as a contractor, pay yourself and get us to pay tax on your behalf. This is called scheduler contracting. We take the tax, and this prevents you from having a large tax bill at the end of the year, this depends on your other personal income you may receive outside of this Funding - but you do have to fill in a tax return which can be done online.
3. The third option is to set yourself as a contractor and do your tax return at the end of the year and pay taxes at that point.
Depending on your employment arrangement the detail changes slightly but the overall process is the same regardless.
In our Web Portal as the Employer, you will create a fortnightly expense claim or timesheet for the hours of support provided.
Once you have verified all the information is correct, you submit the claim/timesheet to our Payments team who process it for you. The difference being if you submit a claim, you are paid the funds to then pass on to the contractor. Whereas for a timesheet, the employee will get paid their take home pay directly to their account.
All employees must be paid at least the Pay Equity rates although you can pay more.
Keep in mind the higher the pay rate the quicker the funding will run out. Once the funding is used up, you will need to wait until the next allocation before any more money will be available.
Typically, up to 40 hours, but your NASC would have allocated the number of hours per week you are funded.
You will need to remain within your budget. For example, if you are allocated 6 hours a week, to make your allocation last the full year, you should only pay 6 hours a week for your support at pay equity rates.
Depending on what option you have chosen for paying a family member that lives with you, payments can be easily processed on our Portal.
If the family member is a contractor or schedular contractor, you can submit an invoice for the time with the hourly rate onto the Portal. An invoice can be typed, handwritten or even submitted as a timesheet.
If the family member is an employee of the agent, it is as easy as submitting timesheet on the Portal.
The agent will approve the timesheet, and the money will be paid into the family member/employee’s bank account.
Payroll is fortnightly. If it is submitted by 5pm Monday, it is paid that Wednesday. Late submissions are processed within 5 business days.
Respite funding is allocated to give the main family carer a break. A family member, who is being paid to support someone from the Individualised Funding allocation, cannot be paid from Respite funding.
Other family members who are not the main carer and do not live in the same house, can be paid to provide a break for the main carer.
Currently, MSD do not allow resident family carers to be paid under their Individualised Funding policy.
