Bad advice 00:04. Very bad advice.

Taxes don't need to be justified. They are your legal obligation.

Oops darn auto control! What I meant to say above was you are lucky to have found this- yes it is better to do things legally- but the truth is that most nanny salaries are too low in this area in the first place to justify paying taxes which is why people do it. The benefit to being legal is that you are doing things right- but if you are only offered $30,000 a year anyway why do it? It's not like a real career where when you start at that rate in 10 years you will be making $50,000 a year- in this industry unless you work for a family that can actually afford you- you won't make much more than that and very few people make that as a median range. If you are a beginner good for you!

No the offer wasn't $15 on the books- it was $15 OFF the books for 50 hours a week which for essentially one child and 3 weeks paid vacation is Amazing- that's $750 a week clear. I work on the books and at 40 hours a week and bring home over a $100 less a week making $20 an hour for 2 kids live-out - so you struck nanny gold. I will say that whole technically "illegal"- you arent losing out unless you plan to collect social security- which if its only a year or 2 gig isnt goinh to make or beeak you anyway as your social security real are lucky to have found this and the crap about being on your real salary for that year wouldnt be much to make a dent.

$15 average on the books is still a very good offer. There are fewer nanny jobs out there than you would imagine. If you are fine with paying under the table then you would have access to a pretty good pool of nannies. We interviewed several great candidates who ended up not being legal to work so we couldn't hire them..au pairs who had not gone home after finishing their degrees and au pair contracts, educated foreign nannies with excellent english skills, etc. Its very difficult to find jobs that pay under the table in this area so under the table you would be more in the $12 range.