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getting reimbursed for dinner by your employer: how does it work for you?
fightinfilipino
Angry as Hell#BLMRegistered User regular
Angry as Hell#BLMRegistered User regular
this is somewhat of a hybrid advice asking/poll thread. my employer is revamping their meal reimbursement policy, and i've been trying to find information on what's "standard practice" at typical businesses for this sort of thing. i want to be able to come back to the employer and present a meal reimbursement program that'd work well for my employer and my employees.
right now our system works like this: if you stay after 8pm to continue work, the employer picks up the tab, up to $15, for either dinner or a taxi ride home. for the last few years or so, employees have been using this reimbursement procedure to buy $15 worth of groceries that night instead of a traditional take-out dinner. i want to argue that that's reasonable under the spirit of the reimbursement, but the employer is taking the opposite position.
i'd like to get people's own experiences and personal opinions on this. i haven't been able to find anything remotely useful by just googling this, and i have a few friends around town with similar employers, but not enough to get a general idea of what normal businesses do for this. anyone have a similar program in their place of employment?
right now our system works like this: if you stay after 8pm to continue work, the employer picks up the tab, up to $15, for either dinner or a taxi ride home. for the last few years or so, employees have been using this reimbursement procedure to buy $15 worth of groceries that night instead of a traditional take-out dinner. i want to argue that that's reasonable under the spirit of the reimbursement, but the employer is taking the opposite position.
i'd like to get people's own experiences and personal opinions on this. i haven't been able to find anything remotely useful by just googling this, and i have a few friends around town with similar employers, but not enough to get a general idea of what normal businesses do for this. anyone have a similar program in their place of employment?
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I know people who also use the reimbursement to buy food that isn't take out and have because of dietary considerations. There was some kafuffle over it I believe, but in the end she just had to make sure she kept separate receipts for these grocery purchases to submit.
$15 worth of groceries is a lot compared to just spending $15 at a restaurant. I can see why the boss is pissed about that but he can't really dictate what they can get I guess.
Edit: Let people keep doing the buy-groceries bit but just lower the amount they get. If you get food from a restaurant we'll stay at $15 but if you're getting groceries after work cap at $9 or something. You get really detailed and create some equation to create the grocery cap if you wanted.
Shogun Streams Vidya
I disagree.
The 'spirit' of meal reimbursement is that since you're probably going to be eating dinner at work, due to working late and not being home to cook, your employer should cover your meal.
Buying groceries at the grocery store that you then take home violates the spirit of the benefit.
That said, if the workplace has a kitchen and if people are buying groceries to assemble a meal at work, then I wouldn't see a problem with it. But if they're just doing it so their employer can pick up the tab for a day's worth of food, then that seems like an abuse to me.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
No no no no no no no. A thousand times no.
Expense reimbursement is not salary, wages, or compensation. If it were, it would be taxed. You don't get to use it however the fuck you want. It's reimbursement for a specific purpose. Just because your employer says, "You have a food allowance up to $15 per day that you work late," doesn't suddenly give you a right to that extra $15 per day. You're not being paid $15 more per day.
As a low-level employee in a call center, it's not that big of deal. But if you were a manager at a public company and you were using expenses like that, you could be in deep shit. If there were widespread abuse of expenses in the manner you describe, your company could be in deep shit (with investors and with the SEC). This is the kind of thinking that leads people to go, "Well, I have a $500/week travel allowance that I haven't used in two weeks. I guess I'll use it to book my vacation travel to Hawaii."
Or, a less extreme example... I get commuting expenses up to $40 per day when I go to my company's central office in San Francisco. That's $10 for travel and $30 for parking (which is how much parking costs in downtown SF). Now, if I decide to spend $5 and take the subway instead, do I get the privilege of spending $25 to take a taxi home from a bar that night? No, because that's not work-related, and that's not the purpose of the allowance. This is analogous - you're arguing that because your employer will cover up to $15 for dinner at work you should be able to spend $15 for food that you're going to eat off the clock at home. If it worked that way, you'd have to pay taxes on it.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
At my work, we get $40 a day for meals if we're away from base (it's like $10 for breakfast and lunch, and $20 for dinner). They just give us the allowance at the end of the month, as a "reimbursement" more or less. How we choose to spend the money is up to us. The spirit of the reimbursement is that the company is paying for most, if not all, of our meals while we're working in a far-off location for them. If we want to eat healthily and shop at a grocery store and make it ourselves on our own time, and save a bit of money in the process, what should they care? Likewise if we eat out at a fancy restaurant and pay for a large portion ourselves, what should they care?
Feral makes a good point about managers at public companies and whatnot, but it doesn't seem like the OP is creating a program for people like that. These are regular employees that aren't being held accountable for the salary they make. Just make it a rule that if you stay at work past 8pm, you get the meal reimbursement. Whether the employee chooses to spend the money on fast food, groceries on the way home, or just bank the money and not eat at all, it's not the company's problem.
I think in this case going to a grocery store would definitely have been in spirit of the reimbursement. It's not like I would have been feeding a family using it, and if I had gone to a grocery store it may have saved the company money since I probably wouldn't have had to buy anything the following day.
I mean, if they were cool with it, that would be another thing, and hey if you want to treat yourself to some really nice groceries for the one meal, that's fine.
But if you're treating it as salary without approval it's unethical and potentially illegal, because business expenses=/=salary.
My advice is to just get something damned yummy and big. If you just HAVE to take something home, get something that you can't eat all of. They're not going to spaz if you doggy bag.
If nothing else, this would be the ethical way of handling it. I agree rather strongly with all of the points made here, and I suspect that this is the hypothetical employer's perspective on things as well.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
That makes it taxable income which fucks up everything.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Does it? I haven't the slightest clue how your backwards American tax system works, so it's all a big unknown for me. But I know that because of the way we're paid the meal reimbursement, it's basically just added onto our paychecks at the end of the month. So it's taxable anyway, since it's a source of income irregardless.
Is it normal practice to do these meal reimbursements under the table for American companies? A payout in cash the next day or something? I'm genuinely curious - I figured the way my company did it was really the only legitimate way.
You may *not* pick up groceries and expense them. However, you may have an exception approved if it is a good reason. IE: Only 7-11 was open when you flew in. Or one of my exceptions was that I was so sick with the flu that I couldn't eat for 2 days and I was permitted to expense cold medication from a grocery store since there were two days with no meals O_o
If you stay late and need to go for dinner you should be able to buy groceries for making dinner.
If you buy some dinner supplies and then some toilet paper or ice cream or whatever then your employer should have the right to just pay for the dinner part.
The way I would present it to the company is "do you want me to go to $X pizza place and get some unhealthy food or buy some normal groceries and have a healthy meal?"
If it were allowed you'd have corp execs giving themselves 2000 dollar a day "expense accounts" to avoid paying any taxes on their income. It's too open to abuse if you let people spend their reimbursements on anything they want. It's all documented(or should be) with receipts and such for a reason. It's abused all the damn time but that doesn't make it legal.
You tell your friend you are going to the liquor store to buy beer, you friend also wants beer and gives you 50 dollars to go buy a carton (he apparently likes premium priced beer) on the way down you pass another liquor store that has this beer on special for half price. You buy it and when you come back you give the change back to your friend, because keeping the money would mean you are a giant dick.
It's the same principal here that money is used for a specific purpose. Buying you dinner for that night, not for tommorow and not for lunch either. (Cycophant I think you will find if you go to payroll and query this it will not be taxed either that or you can get the money back when you do you taxes at the end of the year)
Satans..... hints.....
http://www.gsa.gov/mie
No, it is not normal for American business to pay expenses under the table. And I am repayed my expenses as a check or I can have it added to my payroll. But that money isn't considered "taxable" income. But it's more a confusion of terms. A company can give a perk of paying for meals of those who stay late. Such a perk isn't taxable. Such a perk can require a receipt to show reimbursement for that perk. They can not however just give me cash to do with as I please. That cash would not be a perk but a bonus. And bonuses are taxable.
My employer buys me lunch directly...not taxable.
My employer pays me back for a lunch as an expense for the company...not taxable.
My employer gives me cash to spend as I please...very taxable.
There are some grey areas. As a sales rep I have submitted an expense report for some questionable places with the permission of my boss (What happens in Vegas is known to the HR department when expenses are reported). Alas now that I am in testing I won't get to do that as much.
For our execs, everything is expensed. So we collect our receipts for meals, travel, parking, etc etc and submit them periodically, and reimburse on those. We only have a small number of people this applies to and the rules are laid out to us. Rules are pretty flexible, just that we are reasonable ie no expensive restaurants, reasonable attempts made to keep costs to whats necessary, etc. It isnt taxable income, it is expense reimbursement and paid seperately to salaries.
For our store staff, you cant do that because a) it would be too much administrative hassle to go through all the expense procedure for so many people and b) people would abuse the priveledge as staff turnover is relatively high in retail positions, so they tend to push their luck more. So, we just have a flat $ amount added to their pay if they work past a certain time. Its that simple, work past X time, get $Y extra in your pay. We dont care if the person doesnt eat anything, brings in a sandwich, or pops to a $200 restaurant on the way home, they get $Y and thats the end of it. It is taxable income and is added to your fortnightly pay.
Based on the OP i'd guess the staff fall more into the second category i've listed, so i'd go with that. Its easier to administer as well. I agree with the boss, that using the entirety of a maximum allowance to pick up groceries is abusing the spirit of the allowance.
Only if the company says it does.
But, typically, for most companies, no it does not.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I've never heard of being reimbursed for late work. IMO, there should be a stated smount, and the policy should explicilty state it's for meals for working after 8PM, no reciept required.
So what if there person gets into an accident while getitng their Nachos bel Grande? Are they on company time? Do they use their vehicle, or a company car? Are they paid for the travel time? What about gas?
Are they expected to go get food and come back to the office, or just go home?
I would think you weould need two policies, one for exempt and one for non-exempt employees, as hourlies generally have stricter rules about not being in the office or on the clock.
The company paying more for less of a benefit for the employees and the employees that having been following policy losing part of the benefit, all for people who want to buy groceries seems like a raw deal to me.
In any case, I doubt the employers would be having such an issue if employees were buying groceries to eat at work. It sounds like they are probably taking a lot home with them.
i can understand the "taxable income" problem. that is certainly an issue i didn't even think about. i definitely knew the concern that the reimbursement might be seen instead as compensation if people were simply using it for anything but the intended purpose.
the way our system works now is that any employee that stays after 8pm for work can leave the office, pick up dinner, and get reimbursed for up to $15. they don't have to stay at work (i'm aware that this is pretty generous already). the "practice" of people picking up groceries in lieu of a regular take-out meal has been happening for the last two years without our employer clarifying the situation. this may have to do with poor management as much as with employees stretching the boundaries...
could it be argued that getting food groceries with the $15 that night instead of a "traditional" take out dinner falls within the same purpose? having the flexibility to grab groceries rather than a direct dinner can be a big boon for people, imho. i would also say that this can't be used to buy food on a different day; in other words, if you stayed late past 8pm to work, you would have to buy your dinner or food that evening in order for it to be eligible for reimbursement and in order for it to fall under the intended purpose of the late meal.
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$15 goes much further at a grocery store than it does at a restaurant. If I look in my kitchen at this moment I can grab an 8 pack of buns and an 8 pack of cheddar wursts to throw in the grill for $3-4 before tax. Easily enough food to feed one person multiple times or multiple people once or twice. And you still have $11 left. So basically if I worked at your company and worked late every day your boss would be paying for my groceries consistently as I enjoy cooking at home much more than going out a lot. This is not why the benefit was created and how it was intended to be used.
Shogun Streams Vidya
If we take clients out to breakfast/lunch/dinner we are allowed to expense that as well. Taxi's we're only allowed to expense every once in a while pending on what it's for.