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.
Gary Tyreman brings more than 20 years of executive leadership to his role as the president and chief executive officer at Univa Corporation. As CEO, he leads all of Univa's global operations and is the architect of Univa's data center automation strategy, which combines the deep expertise of Grid Engine with Univa's solutions for optimizing and managing IT workloads including containers. Gary has established Univa as a recognized software provider to hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies in multiple industries. Prior to taking this role, Gary was SVP of products and alliances at Univa.
Michael Ryan is a partner at McDermott Will & Emery.
Dale Van Demark is a partner at McDermott Will & Emery.
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:
