US DOL Talks about Employer PERM Account Registration
Posted by Jeff Xie on April 24, 2005 at 13:52:33
Question: Can an attorney, agent or law firm register to use the Permanent On-line System? Answer: No. Only an employee or owner of the employer entity may register to use the Permanent On-line System because employers must make the attestations required for the permanent application process and a PIN will only be assigned to an employer. The registration must be submitted by an individual with actual hiring authority for the employer. The individual listed under the “Employer Contact Information” section of the registration page must be an individual with actual hiring authority for the employer and cannot be the attorney or agent. During the registration process, the employer may create sub-accounts for attorneys or agents. We will cancel or deny registrations submitted by non-employers. If the employer’s information on a submitted permanent labor certification application does not match the employer’s information associated with the PIN used with the application, the Department may deny or revoke the permanent labor certification." DOL verifies the existence of each employer that attempts to register. At first, this process went very quickly and employers received their PIN numbers and passwords sometimes within hours. Now that more employers are registering, it is taking an average of two weeks to get feedback on a registration. Because of the length of time it’s taking to register an employer, some are attempting to register multiple times, thus exacerbating the problem. In many cases, DOL is sending back emails indicating that it cannot verify the employer’s existence and/or asking for documentation to verify that existence. DOL provided some pointers to avoid these requests or, if received, to respond to them: • On the form, please make sure that the company’s Headquarters address is included as the company address. You can put the address of the office where the beneficiary will work in the appropriate box, but it’s the overall corporate address that is pivotal on the “existence check”. • Avoid “doing business as (dba)” names wherever possible, and instead use the company’s legal name. The dba may complicate an existence check. • For companies that have several EINs, please use the EIN that the company had when it filed its articles of incorporation. If a separately incorporated subsidiary is registering, do use that subsidiary’s EIN, but don’t use a different EIN if the employer is just a division, or otherwise is not a legally separate entity. • The DOL recognizes that the Form SS-4 may not be readily available to some employers. If you’ve received a request for documentation to verify the employer’s existence that requests a Form SS-4, the DOL indicates that it will accept the employer’s most recent quarterly tax return instead. It has recently changed its requests to include that option, but if you received one of the old requests that gives no alternative to the Form SS-4, please be advised that the quarterly tax return is nonetheless an option. • To create a sub-account for an attorney, the employer must log on using the designated PIN and password and create the account. • The employer can view all filings prepared by attorneys for which it has set up sub-accounts, but an attorney can view only the applications he or she has done, and cannot view any filings done by the employer or its other attorneys. • Because DOL wants the employer to be answerable for the process, an attorney will need to have a separate user account and password for each of its client companies. DOL realizes the difficulties this presents in managing multiple passwords, but is insistent on this system. • When an employer registers, it gets two emails, one providing the PIN and one providing a password. The employer is then supposed to log on and change the password to one of its own choosing. DOL notes that some employers have been simply forwarding the PIN and password to the attorney, and then the attorney logs in and changes the password. The employer then loses control of the account, as it no longer has control of the password. DOL asks that employers make the password change themselves, as DOL want the employer to maintain control of the master account. • Some employers have been having trouble receiving the emails with the PINs and passwords because of their spam filters. Because they come in two consecutive emails from the same sender—Dept. of Labor—some spam filters clear the emails out into the spam box. This, apparently, is a particular problem with those who use AOL as their ISP. One solution DOL suggests (apart from checking your spam box) is to create a free email account on Yahoo or hotmail for this purpose and thereby bypass the AOL filters. You might also be able to turn off some of AOL’s spam blocking. Cite as "Posted on AILA InfoNet at Doc. No. 05042245 (Apr. 22, 2005) ." Provided for Xielaw.com visitors
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