Perspectives on Political Appointments : Americans--We’re Criminals All! : Part-time help: A simple change in tax laws would keep millions from being scofflaws.

You don’t have an in-home nanny or housekeeper or even occasional house cleaner. You don’t have to worry about those tricky Social Security laws.

Or do you? Does the neighbor child mow your lawn every week in spring and summer, for $5 a week? Does the teen-ager next door baby-sit for your children a few hours a week, for $2.50 an hour? You, too, are in violation of the Social Security laws.

It has been decades without any change in the law that requires employment tax returns to be filed and taxes paid whenever any person you employ earns $50 or more in a calendar quarter--three months! Granted, Congress is rightfully concerned with the growing problem of the underground economy--people who work for cash and neglect to pay any income tax. But retaining the $50 minimum does nothing at all to solve that problem--and makes scofflaws out of millions of us.

I have a modest proposal. Raise to $250 per calendar quarter the minimum earnings from one employer before Social Security taxes are due (and complicated paperwork required). Employers of teen-age baby-sitters, occasional window-washers, grass cutters and the like would no longer be lawbreakers. The amount of Social Security tax (and parallel state tax) lost is likely to be minimal, as there is good evidence that it isn’t being paid now. Substitute a requirement that all employers paying any individual (except a youth 16 or under or enrolled in school up to 12th grade) between $50 and $250 in a calendar quarter fill out a simple postcard form. The form could require only the employee’s name, address and Social Security number and the employer’s name and address.