Maybe the community can help educate me on this question I've had for a while.<p>Aside from my day job, I've been running a small software business (selling add-ons for a CMS) that maybe brings in about $200-$300 a month in income, which isn't much.<p>However, I'd like to grow the business and there's a past student of mine who's been helping me out for about 6 weeks now as a volunteer at my day job and now I've had him also start helping me with some bug fixes and new feature additions for the software I sell.<p>I'd like to hire him properly, and I'm sure I could use something like Zen Payroll to help out with the paperwork and other taxes that would be incurred to do so (Zen Payroll is relatively inexpensive, but I'm not sure how much the California/Federal taxes/fees might be), but I've never hired anyone before so it's kind of a scare thing (after the first hire it should be a lot easier :-). Would hiring that first person using Zen Payroll as easy as signing up and adding him in?<p>The conundrum I have though is, how can I hire someone, when the business itself isn't even making enough to provide a decent wage? With our current income, I'd really only be able to afford to pay him for a few hours a month (if I was solely relying on the business income).<p>Should I start small and just pay him out of what I can afford right now, or should I bring in more of my own money and make it easier to give him at least a few hundred dollars in wages each month?<p>Thanks for the help!
It doesn't sound like you can afford an employee, even if the cost of payroll taxes and such were zero. You can barely cover a consult with a lawyer and accountant to understand the labor laws and get payroll set up. $200-300/month just doesn't justify that kind of paid help. If you wanted to invest some of your money to have him do something for you, it'd more realistically be as an independent contractor, not as an employee.<p>If you feel bad about having him do work on your side business un-compensated, and can't afford to compensate him what you feel he's worth, the only right thing to do may be to not have him work on your side business. Perhaps you can repay his volunteer efforts so far by helping him start his own business or project of some sort.<p>Careful with the volunteering thing either way. If someone's treated as an employee, and doing the work an employee would do, they are owed minimum wage, no matter what you each call the relationship. The IRS and state want their income and payroll taxes.
> Should I start small and just pay him out of what I can afford right now, or should I bring in more of my own money and make it easier to give him at least a few hundred dollars in wages each month?<p>What about paying him what his work is worth?