New I-9 forms delayed

On February 2, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it delayed by 60 days, until April 3, 2009, the effective date for using the revised Form I-9, originally scheduled to go into effect today.

Here comes the tricky bit - Employers who use the new form prior to the April 3, 2009 effective date are subject to civil monetary penalties.

Be careful, and don't jump the gun. ONLY use the form which is currently in effect, not the new one.

New regulations on Social Security No-Match letters

Immigrations & Customs Enforcement (ICE) just published new final regulations related to employer obligations when receiving "no-match letters" from the Social Security Administration. The real issue here is, of course, not social security taxes. The real issue is the employer's obligation to determine whether it is only employing persons lawfully entitled to work in the United States - i.e. I-9 compliance.

Basically, the regulations provide a safe-harbor for employers. The employer will be protected from sanctions, if it exercises due diligence to promptly re-verify an employee's information and does not otherwise know that the employee lacks work authorization.

More to follow, once I have digested the full set of regulations.