

Ask HN: Simplest way to start paying people? - robinwarren

Hi Folks,<p>I'm working on something and wondering what the quickest way to get setup to be able to pay people money would be. Basically I'll be taking money of one group (probably businesses) and then paying some of that money to others (probably individuals). I'm wondering what the simplest way to get a proof of concept up would be for the paying money to individuals part. Can I just require everyone to have a PayPal account? Or would something else be easier/better.<p>If anyone has a recommendation as to the best way to do this as opposed to the quickest way I'd be interested in hearing that as well, thanks.<p>Robin<p>==edit==
Ok, trying to be more specific. 
What would be the easiest way technically speaking to arrange payments from a webapp to individuals? And are there any.specific gotchas to be aware of.<p>Thanks for the help.<p>== Edit 2 ==
Payments will be 10s or $100s
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kandu
I am interested in the same issue.

There seem to be various service providers for doing the actual payment, i.e.
<https://www.x.com/community/ppx/mass_pay> or
[http://www.arvatodigitalservices.com/fileadmin/case_studies/...](http://www.arvatodigitalservices.com/fileadmin/case_studies/it_hightech/Case%20Study%20-%20Global%20Disbursement%20Solution.pdf)
.

However, I would like to know in which countries a business could be legally
do something as mass paying thousands of individuals without going into the
hassle of signing contracts with each of them.

Are you based in the USA or elsewhere?

If you pay an individual, aren't you supposed to pay to the fiscal authorities
any tax for the wage you pay?

Which are the startup-friendly countries where this kind of mass payments are
possible without bureaucratic hassles?

~~~
kandu
For example, in the USA, "You generally must withhold federal income tax from
your employees' wages. You withhold part of Social Security and Medicare taxes
from your employees' wages and you pay a matching amount yourself." -
[http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=172179,00....](http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=172179,00.html)

"If you classify an employee as an independent contractor and you have no
reasonable basis for doing so, you may be held liable for employment taxes for
that worker" -
[http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=99921,00.h...](http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=99921,00.html)

I assume that the US law allows "contracts" that are "signed" or agreed with
one click on the "I agree with the terms and conditions" checkbox, and this
contract would establish the paid individual as an independent contractor, and
then the paying business has no burden of tax payment on behalf of the
individual.

Do you have any information about the legal framework for similar issues in UK
or Ireland?

~~~
robinwarren
Not yet! Time for some more research I think.

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nyellin
Your question is too vague. Please provide concrete details, or answers will
be abstract and useless as well.

~~~
robinwarren
Hopefully the edit clarifies things

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justinph
Not sure what the simplest would be from a tech perspective (probably paypal).
But I'd only pay people once they've built up enough of a balance to make it
worthwhile to do a payout. At the very least, you'd reduce your payout
throughput that way.

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F00b4r
The best answer depends on the magnitude of the payments. Are we talking about
penny/dollar payments or O($100) or O($1000) payments?

~~~
robinwarren
I'd be interested in your recommendation for dollar amounts as it's actually
likely to be 100s at a maximum really. Thanks

~~~
F00b4r
With small payouts, a significant percentage of the payments will be taken by
the middlemen.

With large payouts, people will have to wait a long while before the first
payment, and may end up believing its a scam.

If you dont mind can you describe what you are doing?

~~~
robinwarren
Hi, sorry for the secrecy. Without going into too much detail, i'd be taking
larger payments from businesses and paying chunks of multiple of those
payments each to individuals. Similar perhaps to adsense. Ie a single
individual wouldn't just get say 10% of a single payment but of several.

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moreofalurker
You might want to check out wepay.com / not sure whether that is what you are
looking for, but it might be worth taking a look.

