Hiring my underage daughter - paying from business account

[Heath M.]

My daughter is 11 and I routinely have her with me while I'm stopping by my rental.  Problem is I'm running out of ideas on jobs I can say she's hired to do.  Looking for ideas and thoughts from anyone who's done it.  

Basically so far she's picked up rocks, held the flash light, ran back in forth from the tool bag, etc.  Mostly looking bored and ready to go home...lol  She's at least been a trooper during showings and clean up/maintenance activities.  

My goal is to pay her a "wage" every month by check from my business account. Then I can set her up a bank account and an investment account. Main goal is so she can roll all that money into a Roth IRA at a very young age. I'll have to have her file taxes this year but that's well worth it in my opinion. I figure this will at least set her up for the future and maybe, just maybe will get her interested in wealth building at a young age.

[Natalie Kolodij]

Originally posted by @Heath M.:

My daughter is 11 and I routinely have her with me while I'm stopping by my rental.  Problem is I'm running out of ideas on jobs I can say she's hired to do.  Looking for ideas and thoughts from anyone who's done it.  

Basically so far she's picked up rocks, held the flash light, ran back in forth from the tool bag, etc.  Mostly looking bored and ready to go home...lol  She's at least been a trooper during showings and clean up/maintenance activities.  

My goal is to pay her a "wage" every month by check from my business account. Then I can set her up a bank account and an investment account. Main goal is so she can roll all that money into a Roth IRA at a very young age. I'll have to have her file taxes this year but that's well worth it in my opinion. I figure this will at least set her up for the future and maybe, just maybe will get her interested in wealth building at a young age.

 If done right you don't have to file her taxes. 

Talk to your tax pro to make sure you're doing this correctly. 

But essneitally she can make up to the standard deduction before a filing would be required- so you could potentially pay her up to $12k with no tax return. More if you also fund an IRA.

However- you need to pay her what you would pay a stranger to do the same job. You can't say you're paying her $25 an hour to move rocks. You could get a laborer at minimum wage for that. 

So at long as you're paying her a justifyable wage, for reasonable hours it's a great idea.