<prompt> Human: I pay my kids for chores; as an example I pay one of them to cut the grass, and I pay him exactly what my last lawn service charged me for it. Reading Investopedia it sounds like if I document the pay carefully enough it could qualify as earned income and they could be contributing it to an IRA. Like the article mentions, this is prime, prime Roth material because their effective tax rate NOW would be nilch or close to it. Has anyone in the US ever done anything like this before ? Any tips ?  <response>: Side note: they do not need to contribute to an IRA from their earned income. Their earned income just sets the upper limit on how much they can contribute, up to 5500 per year. For example: little Sammy earned 670 working for you, but Sammy wants to spend his 670 or save it in a plain checking account. Theres nothing stopping you from gifting Sammy another 670 for the express purpose of putting it in his IRA. Tl;dr: money is fungible. 