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.
Philip Cornell is senior economist at the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity.
Scott Sowers is a reporter based in the Washington, D.C., Bureau where he covers ESG issues, cyber-crime, lobbying, and taxation. Prior to joining The Bond Buyer he freelanced for The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Atlantic writing about real estate. Other areas of expertise include architecture, design, energy, housing policy, automotive, and the utilities.
Gadi Shamia is the CEO and co-founder of Replicant, a leader in Contact Center Automation. Replicant helps companies automate their most common customer service calls while empowering agents to focus on more complex and nuanced customer challenges with natural sounding conversations. Prior to Replicant, Gadi helped to take Talkdesk from a seed-stage company to a Unicorn startup as its COO, and played a key role in architecting and executing its 20X growth in people and revenue. Gadi also held board roles at EchoSign (acquired by Adobe), Intacct (acquired by Sage), Algolia, and Talkdesk.
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:
