This week we're going to talk about the Immigration Reform and Control Act or IRCA. For small business, we will focus on the I9 or onboarding part of this. At cavnessHR, it really is not our concern what your personal or political philosophy is on documented or undocumented workers. What is our concern is that the law says when you hire someone, they have to be authorized to work in the United States and we're going to cover that part of this law.
There are several ways to make sure that people that work for you are authorized to work in the States. The main way is to use the I9 form and to have your workers provide documents that prove they can work in the U.S. The I9 form is a form that you yourself, as a small business owner, or one of your representatives fill out and your employee fills out. Documents that the employee can provide to you to prove they are authorized to work in the States are a U.S. passport, Social Security Card, Drivers License and other documents.
There are very big fines if you hire people not authorized to work in the United States. Because they do come to audit small business and business in general. Some items to know on the I9 form. It's pretty self-explanatory. But there are places that you have to sign and places that your employee has a sign. Also, the documents can't be expired. So example, if someone starts working for you on June 1, 2019, and the driver's license expired May 1, 2019, you can't accept that driver's license. Another item I don't think most small business owners know. Once someone starts the first day of work, they have three days to provide you the documentation.
So someone starts works on Monday and by Friday, they still haven't provided the documentation proving they're authorized to work in the United States. You can let them go. Now If they bring you paperwork, showing that they applied for the document. Then that's good enough to allow them to keep on working. So this is a quick down and dirty on the I9 form. There is a lot of information out there on the I9 form. It is very important that you fill this out correctly, and make sure all your workers are authorized to work in the U.S.
As a backup plan and this is voluntary and I think the government is trying to push it now. The government has a system called E-Verify which basically does the work for you. Basically, you hire someone, you get the employee information, you go to the E-Verify system. You type in their name and it is a little more complicated than this. But then E-Verify would tell you if they are authorized to work in the United States or not. E-Verify is a tool we use at cavnessHR to make sure the workers of our customers are authorized to work in the U.S.
So just a quick down and dirty on the I9 Form and onboarding and the importance of making sure all your workers are documented and authorized to work in the United States. Any questions on this or anything HR related? Just reach out to me at jasoncavness@cavnessHR.com Thanks for your time today. Remember to be great every day.
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