Creating a Business in the US on an H1-B Visa?

GnaGnaGna asks: "I've lived in the US for almost a year now and have a full time position with a major American company under an H1-B visa (work visa for foreigners). Besides this job, I also run an increasingly popular website generating AdSense revenues. I am not sure if I am allowed to create a US company (most likely an LLC), under my legal status, and transfer the Adsense profits to my personal bank account or a business bank account. Have my fellow readers faced a similar legal situation or know anything about it?"

As I'm sure eveyone else will say

Get a lawyer. There is nothing here that can really help you other then moral support.

But what should I know first?

Get a lawyer.

What should people reading this topic know before they walk into the lawyer's office and the clock begins to tick in order to make the best use of the time that they are paying for?

Re:But what should I know first?

"Hey Mr. Lawyer Man. I'm an H1-B worker, and I was wondering if I can start some sort of company here in the US?"

Easy enough. Should take about five minutes and a couple hundred dollars. Fucking lawyers.

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Ask the law firm attached to the big American company you work for.

That's what I do?

Cliff, come on..

Cliff, please explain why this is a good "ask slashdot" question. This is obiously something that should be referred to a lawyer. It is hard to believe that this was the best question you had in the queue.

-molo

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It's not worth getting a lawyer if everyone tells you "not a fscking chance!".

Worse...

Did you notice that the person who submitted this was named "GnaGnaGna"? I'm not convinced it's even a real question.

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Did you notice that the person who submitted this was named "GnaGnaGna"? I'm not convinced it's even a real question.

That's the account for Mr. Stalman's doo-wop quartet.

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While you might find it a bad Ask Slashdot, I for myself am pretty interested in seeing any sensible replies. That is, more sensible than the obligatory "bad question blah blah".

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Actually http://technocrat.net/ [technocrat.net] not only lets you submit your own story, but it has a decent amount of traffic of very smart people, but not so much that they've ever NOT published a story.

Simple answer.

No, you are not allowed to run a business while you are on an H-1B visa. You can be a passive investor in a business ONLY. If you do anything that is regarded as work that would normally be paid, even if you are not remunerated, you break the conditions of your H-1B, and are deportable under 237(a)(1)(C) of the INA. You may not receive anything other than normal shareholder dividends from the company, and you will need to declare them on your IRS return. Any attempt at covert payment through dividends is likely to attract unwelcome attention from the IRS, and possiby the USCIS.

Lots of people do what you are describing, but it is definitely 100% ILLEGAL, and you will most likely be deported and banned if you are caught.

Re:Simple answer.

Forgot to add this: you CAN work for your company if, and only if the company files an approved H-1B for you as an employee of that company as well. You can have multiple H-1Bs: no problem there. However, there are lots of hoops to jump through, and it is not easy. Not sure exactly what it takes, but if you are bringing in significant amounts of cash, why not hire an immigration attorney? See the AILA web site [aila.org] for more detaisl.

Re:Simple answer.

I had two H1-Bs for several years, one for my day job and one for some consulting I was doing on the side. It was not that hard - the first H1-B was for a job at a large university, and these are routinely approved. The second was for work with a small start-up spun off by another university, and that was tougher, since it was a small firm and they had not filed an H1-B petition before and they retained a very good immigration lawyer (who I then hired to do my green card application a year or so later).

The issue here is that a company with one part-time employee (ie the one you are thinking of registering) may have a hard job getting an H1-B application approved.

I would talk to a lawyer, but you *might* be safe if you register the company in your own country, and not to the US -- Google will pay out to other countries??

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OK, this answer is pretty straightforward. How about spinning it a little differently:

I'm on an E3 visa. This is almost identical to an H1B, only my wife is entitled to work as well (she can work for anyone, and has a funky little holographic card to pr

Re:Simple answer.

Okay, so it's not something you can do in America. But if it's a web based business, why not take the steps to form a corporation in your home country, get a relative to help you with the paper work, and run it from here? That way you're running a business in that country and not here. Have the money go to an account in a bank there. That way if you can't stay, you don't lose anything and in the meantime, might make some good contacts that can help you when you're no longer in the USA.

I'm not familiar with the H-1B, so it's also possible the terms restrict you from holding positions in your country while working here. I don't know and I'm not sure, but I thought I'd make the suggestion.

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Still need to talk to a laywer - where's the tax liability?

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Yes, he still needs to talk to a lawyer, but if the income is from a business in his country and goes to an account in his country, and if he spends it there instead of here, then there won't be tax issue, will there?

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No idea. I've know of Canadians who live in Canada and work in the US (commute across the border every day) who are taxed in both countries. I lived in Canada working for an American company without ever visiting the US, and only had a liability in Canad

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He would then become an illegal immigrant. While he may incorporate in his home country, he's still doing the work in the United States - so to be legal he would either need to be on an L1 intracompany transferee visa for the new company he incorporates ba

Sounds like you're already breaking the law..

I recommend that you use the time you have in the US to woo some VC capital.. maybe even sell your website to interested parties. If you get busted, so what? The INS will probably not renew your H1B in any case.

Believe it or not

On an H1B, it is illegal for you to form a business that you are an active investor in. This is part of the "contract" you enter into to become an H1B. However, if you were an illegal alien, it would be just fine. For a prime example of this, check into the history of Philippe Kahn, founder of Borland Software Corporation, creators of Turbo Pascal.

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On an H1B, it is illegal for you to form a business that you are an active investor in. This is part of the "contract" you enter into to become an H1B. However, if you were an illegal alien, it would be just fine. For a prime example of this, check into th

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Overstaying a visa (which is how about 40% of illegal immigrants get here)

And thanks to the sluggish immigration system, a large part of the legal immigrants end up doing so as well.

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And the march on DC was an invasion of a foreign army on our nations capital, what type of crime is that?

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Overstaying a visa (which is how about 40% of illegal immigrants get here) is not even a criminal offense, not even a misdemeanor, just a civil offense like a speeding ticket.

A speeding ticket is a class B misdemeanor. Look it up. A "civil offense" is

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A speeding ticket is a class B misdemeanor. Look it up.

I have looked it up. You are wrong. Here's one source out of thousands:

A traffic infraction is a civil violation such as your basic speeding ticket.
DUI & Traffic Crimes [foryourlaw.com]

Most states don't have th

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I have looked it up. You are wrong. Here's one source out of thousands:

Wow, I knew the East Coast was rather relaxed by Pacific Northwest standards, but I didn't know it was THAT relaxed! It said very clearly on my last speeding ticket that it was a Cla

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Wow, I knew the East Coast was rather relaxed by Pacific Northwest standards

Try WA, CA, IL, HI, and TX as non-east coast states where speeding tickets are civil. I am sure there are plenty more, those are just the ones where I lived and looked it up at th

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Would you PLEASE back up your claim with a citation that shows overstaying a visa is a federal FELONY as you originally claimed.

Well, I'm not real sure it is. But that's how the 1986 Amnesty deal was sold to the American citizenry- that they were going

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Now you tell me- is it right to break a law merely because it is unenforced?

Hello? Who said it is unenforced? You just admitted that it isn't even a misdemeanor, it is a civil violation aka not a crime.

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Next time you want to prove someone wrong, you should actually check your facts by posting them in your rebuttal. Otherwise you end up wasting everyone's time.

And next tome you want to cite something, please don't yank a phrase out of context to prove y

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I stand by my statement - you're both wrong (Marxist Hacker more blatantly so, but still...) In your original post, you wrote:

Overstaying a visa (which is how about 40% of illegal immigrants get here) is not even a criminal offense, not even a misdemean

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>> On average, illegal immigrants kill 25 American citizens every day.

So you're saying we should let in 25 immigrants each day to replace them.

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On average, illegal immigrants kill 25 American citizens every day. That's more than soldiers dying in Iraq - that's 12-14 times the number of people dead since 9/11 than died on 9/11.

Those numbers are made up by people with an interest in skewing the resu

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Those numbers are made up by people with an interest in skewing the results. There is no formal statistically sound basis for those claims. But you are quoting a fear-mongering politician, what do you expect?

As I understand it the government has been preve

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As I understand it the government has been prevented from keeping a close tally on this

Yeah, prevented in the same way that atheism is a religion.

so the numbers given are the best available data

Crap is crap, it doesn't matter if it came out of a prince or

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Yeah, prevented in the same way that atheism is a religion.

I'm going to have to give you that picture of the bunny with the pancake on his head. But to elucidate, it's clear that those in charge of the executive branch don't want to stem the tide of illeg

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I'm going to have to give you that picture of the bunny with the pancake on his head. But to elucidate, it's clear that those in charge of the executive branch don't want to stem the tide of illegal immigrants and they set policy. Far be it from politician

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So, your argument boils down to - illegal immigrants are not saints, so they should burn at the stake.

Wow! That you would equate being denied illegal entry to a country and burning at the stake is simply astounding. Enforcing immigration law is not a pat

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That you would equate being denied illegal entry to a country and burning at the stake is simply astounding.

That you would equate illegal entry to a country with murder and vehicular manslaughter is simply astounding. See my original post about popping a

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Maybe you should re-evaluate the story here http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/920 1 .html [thecarpetb...report.com]

Using the numbers [from the same data] it would appear that you discount the 75% of Americans who are killed by non-immigrants as "OK"?

From comments on the

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Using the numbers [from the same data] it would appear that you discount the 75% of Americans who are killed by non-immigrants as "OK"?

Of course not. It doesn't follow that if you remove the illegal immigrants those people would be killed anyway. There's

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Maybe you should re-evaluate the story here http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/920 1 [thecarpetb...report.com] .html [thecarpetb...report.com]

Sorry, I hit submit by accident.... reading this article I see they're equating arrested murderers with murders. Those are two d

Standard response

You have asked a question that can only be answered by a lawyer. While reading the answers to your question, you should be aware that:

[x] It is likely that many /. readers have been in this situation
[ ] That question is not applicable to geeks.
[ ] Wow. Who would ever wonder about that.

The consequences of following /. advice could be:

[ ] Incarceration in a Federal Supermax Prison
[ ] Incarceration in a regular prison
[ ] Incarceration in "country-club" for white-collar criminals.
[ ] Large fines
[ ] Small fines
[X] Deportation.

Further consequences could be:
[ ] You may have to register your address for the rest of your life.
[X] You may never be able to [legally] enter the United States again.
[ ] You may be subject to the ridicule of your peers.
[ ] You may become an international pariah.
[ ] Find a new career. Toxic waste disposal sounds good.

Best of luck in your future endeavors!

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> [ ] Incarceration in "country-club" for white-collar criminals.

Sheez, you forgot the "federal pound-in-the-ass prison"

Why a US Corporation?

Could you perhaps register the business in your home country instead?

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Maybe his home country is Nigeria ? They never seem to have problems funneling money in and out of Nigeria, now do they ?

Separate Visa program for business owners...

As above: talk to a lawyer. I'm pretty sure there's a separate visa program for business owners, as opposed to employees. On the other hand, you probably have to give up the H1B to get it.

Wuh oh

Did you have authorization from the INS to be running an enterprise for pay, e.g. this little side project of yours? Doesn't matter you were paid via AdSense, you took on side work, even entrepreneurial, you were not authorized to perform.

Technically you're subject to immediate deportation for breaking the law.

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Setting aside the obvious flamebait nature of the parent, I'll take a moment to respond to this.

It is extremely difficult to become a US Citizen. Trying to attain citizenship while on an H1-B visa is a long and slow process, often up to 7 or 8 years. We