Employees working from home during the coronavirus pandemic claimed some outlandish expenses this year, including pricey exercise bikes, facelifts and private jets.
Emburse, an expense management software company, released a compilation Wednesday of some of the craziest expenses it has seen claimed this year, some of which were actually approved. That included $1,895, which was approved as a contribution for an employee's Peloton Bike under the explanation of “for health and wellness.” On the other hand, a $7,600 expense claim for a facelift was submitted under the category of “repairs and maintenance” but was rejected, despite the pressing need to look one’s best during a Zoom meeting.
Paul Daley joined as Managing Director of BondWave’s Information Lab after serving as head of execution and account management for SunGard’s Fox River Execution where he was responsible for overseeing trading activities in the US, Canada and Japan. In addition to managing the firm’s strategic relationships, Mr. Daley published papers on high-frequency trading, spread time series studies, liquidity modeling, dark pool trading and the nickel spread pilot program. He was also responsible for designing new algorithmic trading strategies and trading suites. Prior to joining Fox River, Mr. Daley was head of quantitative trading at UBS O’Connor, a multi-strategy hedge fund. He was also head of derivative and portfolio trading sales at Merrill Lynch and served as the global head of equity indexing at ABN Investment Management (now a part of Northern Trust Global Advisors). Mr. Daley graduated from the University of Chicago with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, and received his MBA from the University of Chicago with a concentration in Finance.
Eric Goldberg is a partner in the Consumer Financial Services, Data and Technology practice at Akerman LLP and a former managing counsel for regulations at the CFPB.
George Waller is a blockchain cybersecurity expert and the chief executive officer at BlockSafe.
Some expenses weren’t for working from home, but more about getting out of the house safely. An expense claim for a private jet charter costing over $20,000 was submitted and approved under the explanation of “required to limit COVID exposure for international shoots.” Another travel-related expense claim was $2,500 for a helicopter ride, which was not approved.
The $79 expense claim for a dog crate could perhaps be used for travel at some point when that's safer, but in these times it was more plausibly to provide "crate training [for] a new COVID puppy to not run into Zoom meetings."
Below is an infographic produced by Emburse showing this and several other head-scratching claims:
