I'm in the process of getting a new job. I just received the offer letter, which was accompanied by an authorization form for a background check.
The background check authorization form was pretty straight forward until I got to the part about employment history. In addition to wanting to know my previous employers, plus contact information for my supervisors at each position, they are also asking me for my salary in each role. The supervisor, start/end dates, employer, and role are all I've ever been asked for at this part of the process in the past.
Up until this point, I never discussed my previous or current salary during the interview process. They asked how much I wanted, I asked how much they were offering, we haggled and both parties are satisfied.
Is there any harm in telling the background check company how much my previous salary/salaries were? This new role's salary will be a hefty step up from my previous compensation, and I don't want to jeopardize this. I'm not sure if I can leave these fields empty since it's an electronic form and not a paper form.
(I figure I should make sure that the offer is signed and accepted before I submit the background check authorization, just to be safe.)
I am in the US, Colorado. The company is multi-national. The field is software.
Research:
I've looked for other questions about this, and the closest I could find was "can potential employers ask for salary?", where I learned that some states have rules that say that while you can volunteer the information, the employer can't downright ask if you don't tell them. (I don't live in any such state.) Furthermore the other answer to that question said that previous employers will usually not do anything other than confirm that yes, you worked for them between such-and-such dates.
Additionally "What does an employer check as part of a background check" doesn't even mention salary, and the closed "Does wrong/misconstrued title and salary cause issues in employment background check?" only discusses New York when mentioning that the previous employer won't reveal salary information. (also not my state)