• Support Policies that Address the Systemic IT and Engineering Professional Talent Shortage in the U.S. While Continuing to Meet Near-Term Needs The U.S. has for many years suffered from a shortage of highly-skilled technical professionals. A qualified workforce is essential to the U.S. economy and the success of the IT and engineering staffing industry. TechServe Alliance supports policies that address the systemic talent shortage including increasing resources for STEM education and worker training. Further, to meet near-term needs, Congress should provide access to a reasonable number of IT & engineering professionals on H-1B visas without any policy changes that discriminate against U.S.-based IT and engineering staffing firms.
• Clarify the FLSA Definition of Computer Professional to Reflect Hundreds of New IT Occupations The 1990s definition of computer professional, as codified in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), was enacted when the World Wide Web and the Internet were in the infancy stage. As America's technology industry has grown at an extremely fast pace for more than two decades, there are literally hundreds of new IT professional occupations. TechServe Alliance strongly supports efforts to resolve any doubt about whether these new IT occupations fall within the FLSA computer professional exemption through updating and clarification of the statutory language
• IT and Engineering Consultants Should Be Able to Choose to Provide their Services as Independent Contractors Tax and employment laws and regulations should fully accommodate IT and engineering staffing consultants who choose to offer their services as independent contractors. TechServe Alliance Files comments on 20% Pass-Through Deduction Proposed Regulations TechServe believes the proposed rule made clear that member firms that operate as sole proprietorships, limited liability corporations, partnerships, or S corporations would be eligible for the full 20% pass-through deduction.

Duration: November 1, 2007 to April 30, 2020

General Issues: Immigration, Labor Issues/Antitrust/Workplace, Education, Taxation/Internal Revenue Code, Insurance, Health Issues

Spending: about $1,970,000 (But it's complicated. Here's why.)

It can be tricky to figure out how much an organization spent on a particular lobbying engagement. The law only requires lobbyists to report the amount they were paid for federal lobbying each quarter rounded to the nearest $10,000—and if it's less than $3,000 in a given quarter (or less than $13,000 for organizations with in-house lobbyists), they don't have to disclose it at all. Plus, some organizations include spending that doesn’t belong in the report—for instance, money spent lobbying state governments or other legal work.

Agencies lobbied since 2007: U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, Treasury - Dept of, U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS), Y Y