Pub. 4 Issue 4

28 T he I-9 Form is a tool to make sure that any employees you hire are not illegal immigrants. Every employee hired after November 6, 1986 is supposed to have one. If you, as the employer, do not have a form for each employee, or if the forms are filled out incorrectly in some way, then you are liable for civil and criminal enforce- ment, including fines that can range in value between $110 and $1100 per form. The fines add up fast. As an example, one company in Washington State had 225 separate I-9 violations and had to pay an average of $770 per form. The total fine was $173,250 even though most of the violations were minor ones: • Status boxes were a problem. There were cases of un- checked boxes, multiple checked boxes, and checked boxes that were wrong. • Sometimes the employee did not sign the I-9. • Either the required documentation for list A, B, or C was missing, or the employee submitted incorrect docu- mentation. • Employees did not complete section 3 of the form when they were supposed to. It doesn’t matter whether your employees are citizens or not. You still have to have them complete the form. The goal is to have employees fill out the form accurately, consistently, and in a uniformway. The employee has to sign the form or acknowledge the signature before the end of the first day of paid work. Once an employee has filled out the form, you need to maintain and dispose of it after the employee no longer works for the company. The form itself is available fromU.S. Citizenship and Immi- gration Services (USCIS) in two languages, English and Spanish. Unless you are operating in Puerto Rico, where you can save whichever version you prefer, the Spanish version is only to be used as a translation tool. Elsewhere, the English version is the one you have to save. Another point to consider is whether you have the most recent version of the form, since it has been revised multiple The Importance of I-9 for Auto Dealers