Some of our members might recall my little tiff with the accounts department of my firm last year when they refused to reimburse me for a dry cleaning bill obtained in the line of duty.
So a few months ago I was overseas on a business trip for two weeks. I had to suddenly attend a white tie dinner in the line of work and yes I did not have a tuxedo. So I dropped the accounts department an email saying that I needed to rent a tux and I would be putting it on my claim form and I gave them the reasons why. So an hour later they reply saying that I am on no account to rent a tux as that would not be an expense covered under the firms reimbursement policy. They informed me that I could however, buy a tuxedo and put it on the firms credit card, which I also had with me. That was apparently allowed. A few hundred dollars spent by myself were verboten, but a few thousand which were charged to the company card were not.
So fast forward to today, the last Monday of the year and as I go to finalise my year end accounts and expense reports, I ask what to do with the Tuxedo. Keep it was the response. Apparently it’s a personal item, but purchased for firms business so I can keep it.:eek: They would not allow me to rent a good tuxedo but they BOUGHT me one. No wonder the world economy is in crises.
I really need to find some more loopholes like this, ther is a lovely 7. Series BMW I have had my eye on and I wonder…
I always thought it was odd that when I travel on business the basic costs of keeping me alive (primarily food) fall on the company. When I’m at home, they don’t care if I eat or not, and certainly won’t pay for it. Such are the vagaries of accounting.
By the way, a tuxedo is typically “black tie”. “White tie” is even dressier.[sup]1[/sup]
A friend of mine is having a white tie party to celebrate the end of civilization in about a year. Don’t know where I’ll find something appropriate.
Travel regs can be weird. You should chat up your new friends in the accounts department and find out what the rationale was. I’d like to know. Sometimes the rules make it impossible to save the company money. For reasons beyond my ken (I Am NOT An Accountant), the principle that “this action saves the company money - a lot of money!” is almost never an acceptable reason for making an action billable. $100 to rent a tuxedo - rejected! - clothing rentals are not allowed per regulation XYZ. $1,000 to BUY a tuxedo - sure, no problem, this is an acceptable business expense per regulation XZZ.
It would make sense and we cannot have that.:rolleyes:
Two or three reasons, IIRC the minimum amount we can charge on the Firm card in about $300 per item and the tux rental was less then that, a rent would be a personal expense one which was not justified by the circumstances, a purchase would be a business spending which would only be incidentally personally beneficial and, different standards apply to reimbursement and usage of the firms card and finally and most importantly the rules have been written by an Autistic 5 year old. With no disrespect meant to autistic 5 year olds.
I would love some accountant to explain how expense rules are drafted, generally because they are rarely logical.
Some companies have travel policies that explicitly exclude paying for lunches while travelling, under the argument that you’d have to buy lunch if you were working at the office, but you’d eat dinner and breakfast at home. Um, what about those of us who pack a lunch to save money and time??? That was the deal at my former employer.
And until very recently, my current company had no meal per-diem policy (meaning, you have an allowance of X dollars to spend on food and incidentals), and had a much lower daily spending limit than the Federal government. As I’m exclusively a Federal contractor, and we can legally bill those expenses up to Federal rates (the contract even states so), it’s not like the company was saving themselves any money. So the deal was we were supposed to charge actual expenses up to, say, 36 dollars a day (where the federal per diem was 48). Realistically, we all would just say 36/day on our reports (the amount was low enough that receipts weren’t required).
Now the policy has changed. we can spend whatever we like, we can just charge the 48 a day. So we can eat ramen 3 meals a day while on travel and pocket the difference, or eat five-start dinners every night and pay the difference out of pocket. It generally evens out, as you’re likely to eat cheap one day and splurge another.
Typo Knig recently travelled and every colleague on the trip was employed by a different employer than he was. They were going out to eat at nice places every night, and he sort of had to join them, but he’s on a similar “lower than Federal” rule so he had to eat (hah) the difference.
In the OP’s situation, the dry cleaning bill from the earlier trip would have come under the 48/day rule - as that’s supposed to cover stuff like that. The tux? What a bizarro chain of events!!!
I’m betting that it’s an accretion of corporate rules that were fitted around a bunch of changing tax laws and regulations. That dooms it to the bureaucracyzone.
[New Employee] What can I expense when I’m travelling on company business?
[Accountant] Anything that you have to pay for while travelling that you wouldn’t have to at home.
[New Employee] Well, I don’t have to pay for sex at home…
I think I mentioned this once, but Once I had to work at my companies main office. Every Hotel in walking distance was 600+ a night. I tried to take initiative and found a place about 3 miles away for less 100 a night, and figured I could rent a car for 35 a day = big savings.
Nope, no cars, only hotel expensed. They suggested the normal hotel people stay at, right across the street for 670 a night and a taxi service from and to the airport at $45, I talked to the travel department director. Absolutely no rental cars in X city, and he sited regulation chapter and verse.
So I booked the expensive hotel and did it their way. Then I paid for my own damn rental car but now…
Now that I think about it maybe I should have bought a car instead:)
Did you know that military deployments are considered government travel? And they pay for ATM fees? At $80/month, you need receipts, but at $79…we’ll take your word for it. According to the Army’s paperwork, every single GI managed to rack up precisely $79 in ATM fees a month. From Iraq. For an entire deployment.
My take is that the tuxedo is meant to last. You are expected to keep it and wear it in the future. It’s probably a policy not just for tuxedoes but for clothes in general.
One thing I hated about my last place, was uniformed employees got free dry cleaning and the company wouldn’t pay to dry clean my suit, as the reasoning was, I could wear my suit to other places.
I can also see how a polilcy that would allow renting of things, be it clothes, computers or whatever would be seen by employees to be an open invitation to abuse and be harder to track. People who would never think of buying a tux might be tempted to slip it by for a lower cost rental.
And to the OP, where do you buy tuxedos that it costs thousands of dollars. You must be going to some really high end shops.
If you have the body for it, and the sense of humor, might I suggest the classic leopard print loincloth? Amazon has EVERYTHING you’ll ever need! Depending on the weather and/or your personal modesty requirements, you might want to wear a pair of tights/leggings underneath. And possibly a fake fur robe over it all. Please note that the loincloth is made of nylon and spandex, for that essential post holocaust feel.
As a taxpayer I have exactly zero problem with this, particularly for those people defending my lazy corpus. Also, I imagine having a line below which receipts do not have to be tracked saves a lot of accounting costs.
I had an 8:00 am meeting about 100 miles from home. I offered to drive up in my own car and was told it would cost too much in mileage allowance and I should take the train.
No train would get me in early enough so I had to travel the day before and hotel it.
so £9 for tube into London
£75 for train
£110 for hotel
£35 per diem allowance
and £20 in taxis
This was somehow cheaper than £90 in mileage allowance?
I was traveling on business years ago. The woman who made my travel arrangements booked me into a hotel “right next to” the hotel where the meetings were taking place, since it was much cheaper, and I could just walk over to the meetings.
Turns out she never looked at the map scale. “Right next to” was actually about 25 miles. I called her furious, and she told me a car rental was not something I was permitted. I went over her head and was told, of course rent a car.
When I continued to scream about the woman’s stupidity, I was told to go to the hotel bar and have a few drinks on the company. I bought several rounds of drinks for all present. When I got home I claimed the bar bill was all mine. Six hundred dollars worth of drinks.
