Employing your spouse

Does your spouse assist you in the day-to-day operations of your practice or your work undertaken as a medical practitioner?

There may be tax savings to be had by remunerating your spouse for the work they do.

It is important you have the appropriate documentation prepared and adhere to the rules and obligations as an employer.

Paying your spouse or family member a commercial wage for work performed for your medical practice can also mean that you are able to pay additional super contributions above the super guarantee and thereby maximise their concessional super contributions each year.

Some common activities that your spouse could be assisting you with might include bookkeeping, practice management, billings and invoicing, creditor payments and other administration tasks.

You will need to ensure the work arrangements are implemented as you would any employee, including paying them reasonable amount and making sure that an employee contract is entered in to for the work performed.

You would also need to register for single touch payroll and a superannuation clearing house to meet your employment obligations, but most accounting software programs will assist with this.

Is your spouse assisting in your medical practice? Are you unsure whether paying them a salary is possible? Do you need to get the correct documentation in place? Our team can help!