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.
Josh Quint is the director of cloud solutions at ServerCentral Turing Group. SCTG offers cloud-native software development, AWS consulting, cloud infrastructure and global data center services.
Gautam Khanna joined Insight's Fixed Income Group as a senior portfolio manager in 2003 (via predecessor company Cutwater Asset Management). He leads the management of Insight's flagship U.S. core, core plus and high yield strategies. Prior to Cutwater, Khanna was a member of the high-yield team at Times Square Capital Management, where he focused on credit management for CBOs as well as high-yield total return accounts. he is a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts. He holds a BS (Hons) from the Rochester Institute of Technology and an MBA degree (with distinction) from Cornell University. He is also a CFA charterholder and is a CPA.
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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:
