sustained EB-1C Case: Logistics

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
MATTER OFF-I- CORP. 
APPEAL OF TEXAS SERVICE CENTER DECISION 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
DATE: SEPT. 28. 2017 
PETITION: FORM I-140, IMMIGRANT PETITION FOR ALIEN WORKER 
The Petitioner, a freight forwarding company. seeks to permanently employ the Beneficiary as its 
logistics and operations manager under the first preference immigrant classification for multinational 
executives or managers. See Immigration and Nationality Act section 203(b )( 1 )(C). 8 U .S.C. 
§ 1153(b)(l)(C). This classification allows a U.S. employer to pennanently transfer a qualified foreign 
employee to the United States to work in an executive or managerial capacity. 
The Director of the Texas Service Center denied the petition, concluding that the record did not 
establish, as required, that the Petitioner has the ability to pay the Beneficiary's proffered wage. 
On appeal, the Petitioner submits additional evidence and asserts that the Director erred by not 
putting submitted tax and payroll documentation into the proper context. 
Upon de novo review, we find that the Petitioner has provided sutlicient evidence to overcome the 
sole basis for denial. Therefore, we will sustain the appeal. 
The petitioning U.S. employer must establish its ability to pay the proffered wage trom the petition 
filing date, which establishes the priority date, until the beneficiary obtains lawful permanent 
residence. To establish this ability, the employer must submit copies of annual reports. federal tax 
returns, or audited financial statements. In appropriate cases, we may take additional evidence into 
account. See 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(g)(2). 
The Beneficiary's proffered salary is $74,400 per year, equivalent to $6,200 per month. When the 
Petitioner filed the petition in November 2015. it submitted copies of its income tax returns for 2012 
through 2014. In each of those years, the Petitioner paid less in salaries. for all employees, than the 
Beneficiary's proffered salary. The taxable income for each year was less than $20.000. and each 
year's net current assets were also substantially lower than the proffered salary. 
Because the tax returns did not establish the Petitioner's ability to pay the Beneficiary's proffered 
wage, the Director requested tax and financial documentation from the tiling date onward. In 
response, the Petitioner submitted a copy of its 2015 income tax return, showing $3,217 in taxable 
income and net current assets totaling $46,838. The Petitioner also submitted other payroll and tax 
documents from late 2015 and 2016. 
Matter of F-l- Corp. 
The Director denied the petition, because the Petitioner paid the Beneficiary only $63,600 in 2015, 
and the Petitioner's taxable income and net current assets for 2015 were each less than the 
Beneficiary's proffered salary. 
On appeal, the Petitioner observes that its 2015 net current assets are sutticient to make up the 
shortfall in the Beneficiary's compensation that year. The net current assets need not be enough to 
pay the entire salary, because the return already took into account the $63,600 that the Beneficiary 
received that year. 
More importantly, the Beneficiary has received the full proffered salary since October 2015, before 
the filing date. The Beneficiary's proffered annual salary of $74,400 is equal to $6,200 per month, 
and pay receipts in the record show that the Petitioner paid the Beneficiary $6,200 every month 
between October 2015 and December 2016. The year-to-date figure on the December 2015 receipt 
is consistent with the $63,600 shown on the Beneficiary's IRS Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement. 
for that year. 
In this decision, we are not finding that a petitioner can simply prorate the protlered wage in a way 
that requires USCIS to take a full year's earnings into account when calculating an employer's 
ability to pay a few months' salary or wages. Also, a petitioner cannot consistently underpay a 
beneficiary over the course of a year and then argue that the year's worth of low payments, taken 
together, could be combined to meet the proflered wage for the last months of the year. 
What is crucial in this case is that, at the time the Petitioner filed the petition in November 2015, it 
had already begun paying the Beneficiary the proffered salary of $6,200 per month. The Beneficiary 
may have received lower pay earlier in the year, but her pre-tiling compensation is not relevant to 
the regulatory requirements at 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(g). The Petitioner paid the Beneficiary the full 
proffered wage, and therefore was demonstrably able to do so, at least as early as October 2015 and 
continuing throughout 2016. 
The Petitioner has established its ability to pay the full proffered wage as of the petition's tiling date. 
ORDER: The appeal is sustained. 
Cite as Matter of F-l- Corp., 10# 641182 (AAO Sept. 28, 20 17) 
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