Indian IT cos will have to pay $8,000-$10,000 per H-1B visa

Washington DC: Almost all Indian IT companies would pay between $8,000 and $10,000 per H-1B visa from April 1 when the next annual H-1B visa filing session starts, thus making it quite unsustainable economically for them. This is not only because of the $4,000 new fee imposed on Indian IT companies under the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2016 which was signed into law by President Barack Obama but also due to the series of other fees that the US Congress has added onto the H-1B visa application over the past one decade.

Notably the original H-1B visa application fee is just $325. Beginning March 2005 another $500 was added as Prevention and Detection Fee. Then there is an Employer Sponsorship fee under which companies having more than 25 employees have to pay $1,500 per visa application. In case of 25 employees, companies pay half the amount $750. This is meant to fund the training of US workers.

As per the bill signed into law by Obama on Saturday, companies having more than 50 employees and more than 50 per cent of employees that are on H-1B or L1 Visa status would have to pay an additional $4,000 per H-1B visa applications. In case of the L1 visa, it is $4,500. And not to miss is the Premium Processing Fee of $1,225. Under this, US Citizenship and Immigration Services decided on the H-1B visa application within 15 business days. Given that Indian companies quite often have to send their employees to the USA at a short notice, they mostly end up opting for premium processing.

In addition to all these, most of the Indian companies pay between $1,000 and $2,000 as attorney fees for filing the H-1B visa application fee. The H1B visa application fee is non-refundable. Further, Indian techies who come to the USA on H-1B and L1 visas also pay Social Security and Medicare as part of their pay role. According to some estimates, it is more than $1 billion per annum.

On paper, they are eligible to receive Social Security benefits even if they leave the USA, provided they have paid Social Security payroll taxes for at least 10 years. But since Indian IT professionals on H-1B visas can t stay in the US for more than six years, that entire amount becomes non-partible. India has been in talks with the USA in this regard but there is any hardly any movement. Given that India has a global leadership in IT, Indian companies are major beneficiaries of the H-1B visa.

The US Congress on Saturday also passed a legislation approving long-pending quota reform of IMF that will give more voting rights to emerging economies like India and China in the functioning of the organisation. The IMF Quota and Governance Reform would marginally reduce the voting share of traditional economic powerhouses like the US, the IMF said in a statement. The reform gives more voting rights to countries like India and China.