Employment Authorization Document Question

[belinda63 3,031]

Working illegally might be forgiven during the AOS process but it won't help if the company is "raided" and he is swept up and taken into custody or prevent the company who has hired him from being fined.

[Amhara 460]

We all know this sort of stuff happens all the time. I don't agree with this practice, but I don't think the USCIS will necessarily ask nor with the OP tell about working in the US prior to EAD issuance.

The 'company', which is really a small-time operation that is not required to use I-9, will not pay her "under the table". Many people use this phrase, but I guarantee you, the employer is NOT willing to pay income tax on the money they are paying someone else. They may pay in cash and not withhold any taxes from the pay, but when they prepare their own income tax return at the beginning of the next year, they are saying 'holy cow! How do I add more expenses??? Oh wait, this net income is way too high!! I need to deduct the pay I was giving to so-and-so!!" So the go back to their accountant (or Turbo Tax) and they find that they cannot deduct the pay until they file a Form 1099-MISC (if the gross pay was over $600 for the year). They look in their file, pull out the copy of the SSN that says, "NOT AUTHORIZED TO WORK WITHOUT DHS PERMISSION" (or something like that) and BOOM! now we have reportable income!!

The person who was thinking they were getting paid under the table gets their copy of the Form 1099-MISC and they either disregard it because they think that "under the table" means no tax or they take it to a person and they find out that they need to pay at least 15.3% of self-employment tax (medicare and social security tax) on this income IN ADDITION to their regular income tax. So they tend to try to forget about it.

Well, the next step, is typically, they file a tax return with their spouse and often report a refund. YAAY!!! Life is good because now the MFJ standard deduction really reduces taxable income! So things go normally until two years after filing that tax return when the IRS sends a notice that there is unreported income. They include the previous 'under the table' income, calculate the new income tax, self-employment tax and add back any refundable credits (additional money that increases your refund) to the new balance due.

Now the SSA knows you were working without authorization, but that's probably two years down the road when the new tax is assessed and you may be well on your way to ROC. Will you be deported? Probably not. Will this cause a problem for later immigration processes? Maybe, but then again, maybe not. But I say all this to say - you may be able to evade immigration and labor laws - but there ain't hardly a way you can evade tax laws on this.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Amhara

[Loki_Go 126]

OP can't legally work for a company without authorization so the company is taking a huge risk hiring an illegal and are likely aware of that. Of course she could work for cash but there's a risk- but realistically how often are these things reported and dealt with? If she's caught is it an auto deport with ban?

OP did put this on VJ and we do know past and present agents read these threads... so there's that.

We were asked if I (the beneficiary) was working during my AOS interview. We had to answer yes... because I was. I was still working remotely for my Canadian company. He didn't care. He asked my husband the question more in the sense of how well he knew me, not if I was working illegally.

I'm in NO WAY advising OP to work illegally- I'd never take that risk. Why anyone would is beyond me considering the time, cost and effort it is to immigrate to the US.

[RainbowMonkey 24]

Thanks everyone for all your input about my situation. I'm probably gonna wait for my EAD before i start working. I don't want to risk it and face with a bad consequence later.

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Illegal work must be disclosed on the AOS form and lying about it can have consequences.