Do I have to have a company in order to hire school intern in CA?

I am self employed and have set up a company. I want to hire an intern do websites for my business and for my family. I am afraid of a lot of tax issue if I officially hire an intern.

Since the person will do both my business and non business stuff, the best way is that I don't need a company to hire the person.

My location is CA

Although I'm in Canada, my university program involved 4 mandatory internships which had to be both paid and held with a legitimate firm in order to qualify.

I would imagine the rules for internships in CA would be similar. It would be safe to assume that you need to have a registered business, and provide income tax statements for any interns you hire.

Keep in mind that there may be government incentives for hiring interns. In my province (Ontario) there are tax incentives for employers hiring students that are part of a registered internship program. I believe these incentives included a tax refund of 50% the intern's wage.

To understand rules and regulations that would apply when hiring an unpaid intern, reference the below link.

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm If the internship is paid then you might as well just call this a job and then standard labor practices apply.