I-9 Completion

bethk

I have a question concerning I-9's. We have 45 stores and sometimes the I-9's we receive are not filled out completely. My question is this, if just a date is missing (not verification of documents or a signature) can we email the store and ask for the date and fill it in ourselves or do we need to send these back for them to complete?

I know the IRS can really be sticklers concerning these and we want to be in compliance, but is something like this acceptable? Sometimes they leave off a date, or write in the wrong date from a document, or the manager neglects to fill in the date when he signs, etc.

I would appreciate any thoughts on this.

Thanks!

Susan Desmond MS

Wow, what an interesting question. First, just as an fyi, it is the Department of Homeland Security and not IRS that is responsible for I-9 oversight. I know of nothing in the regs that addresses this question. As your attorney, I would argue that the regs only require the "employer" to fill out its portion. It doesn't say that one in and the same person has to prepare it all. If the only thing that is missing is the date, then I would just call and fill in the correct date. If it is an attestation that the proper documents were viewed, you will probably need to send back as you obviously weren't the one who viewed the documents.

Sharon McKnight SPHR

Bethk,

If just a date is missing (not verification of documents or a signature) you can contact the store to confirm the correct date then write it in and initial and date your correction. I would contact the store via email and get their response via email and attach a copy to the I-9 Form.

If they've written in the wrong date for a document, how would you know? Are they submitting copies of the documents with the I-9 Form? If so, be sure to get copies of every new employee's documents, not just some of them.

Hope this helps.

Sharon

bethk

Thanks you guys. Yes, I did know it's the Dept. of Homeland Security. I must have had an old age brain fart!

That sounds good to me. I'll just do this via email. This will save a lot of time and money