Can employee pay part or full H1b filing fee?

USA H1B Visa
1

Dear Saurabh

I am looking forward to the H1b job offer from an educational institution. I would appreciate if you could answer a few questions. It is a new charter school, non profit, which wud start from August 2012 and is receiving state funds, and under the school district, but is autonomous in its functioning. So it has less than 25 employees and as per my understanding, I would be the only teacher who would be on H1b.



What would be the total filing fee for the H1 visa?



Can I share some or all the fee and other expenses including premium processing fee and attorney fee?



Thanks



Regards
2

Read the RedBus2US blog for H1B filing fee details - H1B Visa 2013 filing Fee ? Should you pay for H1B cost ?

Legally, your employer is bound to pay all the fee for filing the petition. However, attorney fee and Premium Processing fee can be paid by the employee or the employer. I think, you may bear all the costs if thats not an issue with you
3

Thanks a lot, as it is an upcoming school, the funds are scarce, I just want to make sure that if I bear all the costs, it wud not b any problem with USCIS and also, wud I be sending my personal checks as the filing fee?

4

I think, it won’t be an issue with USCIS as long as you don’t complain.
I am not sure on how you could share the money.

5

Sorry Sujith but you are WRONG on this:

"The Department of Labor (DOL) takes the position that it is the employer’s responsibility to pay for the preparation and filing of an H-1B visa petition - it considers this to be a business expense of the employer; indeed the DOL’s regulations state: “Where the employer depresses the employee’s wages below the required wage by imposing on the employee any of the employer’s business expenses, [including attorney’s fees for preparation and filing of the H-1B visa petition], the Department will consider the amount to be an unauthorized deduction from wages, even if the matter is not shown in the employer’s payroll records as a deduction.”

6

Could you please provide the source of this information?
As per USCIS, the Premium Processing amount can be borne by the beneficiary too. I need to double-check on the attorney fee - will update when I find reliable info on that.
Excerpt from USCIS website:
“The petitioner, attorney or representative, or beneficiary may pay the Premium Processing Service fee, but the beneficiary cannot sign or file the Form I-907.”
Read the section “What is the fee for this service?” in the USCIS link below:
http://tinyurl.com/25bkexk

7

As per the case explained in the following link, the attorney’s fee is not to be transferred to the beneficiary as long as the attorney does not provide any legal assistance to the beneficiary.
http://tinyurl.com/bwe55wr