If someone works in your home—as a child care provider, for example, or housekeeper or gardener—as your employee (rather than as an independent contractor or an employee of a service company), you may be responsible for paying Social Security and Medicare taxes for the employee. This requirement is triggered in 2013 if you pay the employee $1,800 or more during the year. This is also sometimes called the “nanny tax.” (If you pay an employee $1,000 or more in any calendar quarter, you must pay federal unemployment tax.)