New I-9 Employment Verification Form

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Today I want to tell you about the New Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification Form, that employers are required to use effective December 26, 2007. There have been some significant changes, especially with regard to the acceptable identity documentation.

Employment Eligibility Verification

Purpose of Form :

All U.S. employers are responsible for completion and retention of Form I-9 for each individual they hire for employment in the United States. This includes citizens and non-citizens.

On the form, the employer must verify the employment eligibility and identity documents presented by the employee and record the document information on the Form I-9.

The list of acceptable documents has been amended in the 2007 version of the Form I-9 and can be found on page 4 of the forms.

Where to File :

Do not file Form I-9 with U.S.Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or USCIS.

Form I-9 must be kept by the employer either for three years after the date of hire or for one year after employment is terminated, whichever is later.

The form must be available for inspection by authorized U.S. Government officials (e.g., Department of Homeland Security, Department of Labor, Office of Special Counsel).

Special Instructions :

You should have the latest version of the free Adobe Reader to download and use the 2007 version of Form I-9.

Please note the following changes to the Form I-9 process:

• Five documents have been removed from List A of the List of Acceptable Documents:

Certificate of U.S. Citizenship (Form N-560 or N-561)
Certificate of Naturalization (Form N-550 or N-570)
Alien Registration Receipt Card (I-151)
Unexpired Reentry Permit (Form I-327)
Unexpired Refugee Travel Document (Form I-571)

• One document was added to List A of the List of Acceptable Documents:

Unexpired Employment Authorization Document (I-766)

• All Employment Authorization Documents with photographs have been consolidated as one item on List A:

I-688, I-688A, I-688B, I-766

• Instructions regarding Section 1 of the Form I-9 now indicate that the employee is not obliged to provide his or her Social Security number in Section 1 of the Form I-9, unless he or she is employed by an employer who participates in E-Verify.

• Employers may now sign and retain Forms I-9 electronically. See instructions on page 2 of the Form I-9.

Note: The Spanish version of Form I-9, available below on this page, may be filled out by employers and employees in Puerto Rico ONLY. Spanish-speaking employers and employees in the 50 states and other U.S. territories may print this for their reference, but may only complete the form in English to meet employment eligibility verification requirements.

Follow these links to download the English or Spanish versions:

• Download I-9
  
• Download I-9 (Spanish version)
  

I hope you find this information helpful. If you have questions or comments, please send me an email at jayne@quickbooksgal.com.

You can also visit our website: http://www.custmbiz.com/. Well, that’s it for now. I appreciate your time and hope you will join me again next time for another in our MicroPodCast series.

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