Illegal Workers Could Cost You Tens of Thousands

Even if your company is already mindful of its workers' employment eligibility, you may want to double-check your hiring paperwork. The Department of Homeland Security-issued "No-Match" regulation imposes penalties on companies that don't verify employees' Social Security numbers with the SSA database within 90 days of hire. If you knowingly keep on workers who aren't authorized to work in the US, your company could be fined up to $10,000 per illegal employee.In case you're not aware of how prevalent this issue is, here are a couple of not-so-fun facts:

• Discrepancies occur in about 4 percent of the 250 million earnings reports that businesses send annually to the Social Security Administration.

• Homeland Security has filed 742 criminal charges this year, compared with 24 in 1999.