Increasingly Impossible to Run a Business
Under both state and federal law, it is illegal for me to hire anyone without documenting that they are in fact a legal US resident and have the right to work in the US. Those of you who read this blog know that this irritates me, given my support for open immigration, but I do it. It is also illegal for me not to make all the relevant state and federal social security and income tax withholdings for each employee, as well as pay premiums into state and federal unemployment funds, all of which require that I have an accurate social security number from each employee. No valid social security number, no job.
All this mess is hard enough to comply with, and it takes a lot of my managers time, a full-time HR person, and thousands of dollars sent to ADP to stay legal.
A Mississippi Democrat in line to become chairman of the House Homeland
Security Committee has warned the nation's largest uniform supplier it
faces criminal charges if it follows a White House proposal to recheck
workers with mismatched Social Security numbers and fire those who
cannot resolve the discrepancy in 60 days.Rep. Bennie Thompson said in a letter to Cintas Corp. it could be
charged with "illegal activities in violation of state and federal law"
if any of its 32,000 employees are terminated because they gave
incorrect Social Security numbers to be hired.
Great. Now I can go to jail both for employing folks without a valid social security number and for not employing folks without a valid social security number.
