Expenses that can be negotiated with your US employer

I would love to hear the extra deals you had with your employers in the States when you first moved.

Again, I am new to these and I have another chance to negotiate with my potential employer.

Could you let me know if the following expenses can be shouldered or can be negotiated to my potential employer?

1. Travel fare - relocation expenses (this should be a standard. right?)
2. First Month or Two rental expenses (as it is hard for newbies to secure a good apartment due to lack of US credit score).
3. Pre-approved car loan (Employer as your guarantor).
4. Lawyer's fee to obtain TN Visa (this should be a standard).

Please let me know if the above are reasonable and non-eyebrows raising to the employer.

I appreaciate all your feedback. You guys have been so helpful.

I was able to negotiate the expense of shipping my horse as part of my package. No small feat, the bill was almost $3000!

Depending on the industry, you should get first month furnished apartment (with breakfast), relocation expense of $3,000.00 at least to move your goods within the continent, initial apartment lease form could be signed by the employer. The other two items mentioned are standard.

I think they're reasonable requests, on top of the usual 1-3 week holdback of wages, it's expensive to get started down here.

Here's my experience (horticulture)

1. No relo

2. Promised housing assistance-it amounted to HR handing me a copy of the local rental ads they printed off the internet-no help in securing a place or help with first and last. The H2B's they brought in fared better than I, lol.

3. No

4. I've always had to 'eat' the lawyer expense, I agree it should be standard, but I've never been able to recoup any costs (have worked in three states) including my drive to and from the border, visa fees (TN & H1B), and lawyer fees.

By law they have to pay most of the immigration fees. TN-1 is a bit more iffy because it's so cheap. If they've done it before all they have to do really is alter the letter slightly and you claim the $50 as an expense. Big deal.

By law they have to pay most of the immigration fees. TN-1 is a bit more iffy because it's so cheap. If they've done it before all they have to do really is alter the letter slightly and you claim the $50 as an expense. Big deal.

Interesting. I didn't realize that. I had a former employer who 'loaned' me part of the H1B petition legal fees -then took it out of my cheque weekly. On top of that, my number didn't get picked in the lottery, so it was a big hit. We filed an expedited TN extension - then they had a drought-related layoff within 2 days of the application going in. I was stuck with a legal bill and no longer had a job. I was told the extension fees were not refundable by USCIS so it was a double whammy.

Well I'm sure what happens is that the employee agrees to pay the fee in order to secure the job, but technically it is illegal. USCIS get more snotty about it than back when I did it because of the new $500 "discouragement" fee or whatever it's called. Designed to stop US employers hiring aliens.

I've noticed some of the larger, multi-national companies in my industry are starting to promote visa assistance as part of their 'perks', but it's not the norm with smaller, independent companies. In smaller companies, I've only known of one who offered to cover the extension after the employee obtained the TN visa, this company also handled H2-B processing for its' seasonal workers, unlike the many who use 'undocumented' workers.

Yeah, I know of a few companies that do it too, the problem is that sometimes you just don't qualify for a visa or whatever. The accounting services are the ones that get me, they say they'll hire an accountant who will sort everything out when you move.

Well they don't, because they know US tax laws but not the tax laws of the country you're coming from. I know a few people who've been stuffed by "international tax accountants" who were anything but. (They're not all crap but a lot of them are).

I take it all with an enormous pinch of salt frankly. One thing I am fairly certain of is that in some countries there is something fishy going on with the diversity lottery because it seems odd to me that nearly all the people I know who got into the US using it used immigration lawyers, especially people from small countries. It's not a particularly hard form to fill in and send to the embassy. I reckon there's some sort of corruption occuring in some countries or at least there was.

It just seems odd that these highly paid immigration lawyers working for large companies seem to be able to get DV visas even though they're submitting the same paperwork. Hmm.

There was a huge corruption scandal in Québec a few years ago with the immigrant investor scheme there so it wouldn't surprise me to find the same thing happening in US embassies in small countries.