Last week, Congress passed HR 6080, the Border Security Supplemental Appropriations bill. A last minute addition to that legislation was a provision creating a new tax on some H and L petitions. This legislation was signed into law by the President on Friday. By its own terms, it takes effect immediately. No one knows, however, when the CIS will begin collecting the new tax.

The new tax applies only to companies that meet both of the following criteria:

1.  The petitiioning employer must have 50 or more employees;

AND,

2.  The combined number of H and L nonimmigrant employees must be greater than 50% of the total workforce.

If a company meets both of these criteria, they must now pay an additional tax of $2,000 for each H1B petition and $2,250 for each L1 petition. Unlike other "fees" charged petitioning employers, Congress didn't even try to hide the nature of this one. It is tax, plain and simple. All revenues go into the general treasury.

We will post more information about the implementation of this tax on the ImmInfo website as updates become available.