American Express Membership Rewards - how do you pay for business expenses?

For those of us who don’t own the company

How do you pay your Amex bill when you put business charges on the card?
I have been paying for some business expenses (about $15K per month) and am worried about getting a check made to me which is more than my salary (more than 2X) and the tax consequences it may bring.
I know I do not need to pay taxes on this money but would rather not trigger a red flag and have the IRS probe me :D

Will Amex care if my business writes the check made out to them? I guess I would put my account number on the memo line.

Thanks

I generally pay out of my pocket and get rembursed from the company.
Some checks are rather large, but I never had any issue.


the company gives them to you as an expense check not a pay check
and this is a very common practice.

I've had monthly expenses upwards of 20K a few times..

You may wish to read this IRS document which explains the requirements for Employee Business Expense reimbursements...

http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc514.html

Essentially, if your employer is reimbursing your documented actual expenses the reimbursements will not be reported to the IRS as income and should have no effect whatsoever on your personal income tax liability. This is also true if your employer uses per diem or mileage allowances (rather than actual expenses), provided the allowances are within IRS guidelines.

Having your employer make the check to American Express rather than you would not change anything.

I pay the bills myself and wait for my reimbursement from the company. Never had any problems with the IRS in the past 9 years doing this.

Those reimbursement amounts don't appear on your w-2's.

So as stated already, you should be fine.

For those of us who don’t own the company

How do you pay your Amex bill when you put business charges on the card?
I have been paying for some business expenses (about $15K per month) and am worried about getting a check made to me which is more than my salary (more than 2X) and the tax consequences it may bring.
I know I do not need to pay taxes on this money but would rather not trigger a red flag and have the IRS probe me :D

Will Amex care if my business writes the check made out to them? I guess I would put my account number on the memo line.

Thanks

As everyone's stated already - don't worry about it. I used to travel internationally for work - my largest CORP AMEX BILL in one month was $40k+ - my average was in the neighborhood of $25k... I only wish I was paid that much ;-)

Did this for 4+ years never a problem...

i am not worried about having to pay taxes. i know the money is not taxable. what i am worried is if the bank sees an extra $150K go in and out of my bank this year they might report something.

I know that if i did get audited i would be ok all my finances are kosher, i just dont want to go through the pain of getting everything together ect.

<<is if the bank sees an extra $150K go in and out of my bank this year they might report something.>>

If it were in currency there could be an issue, but not with checks or direct deposit. Also, the bank has no concept that expense reimbursements are "extra". It's just money.

Banks are supposed to make note of deposits of 10k and more per the patriot act, especially anything suspicious, but why worry? Consistent deposits from your employer and your withdrawals in similar amounts isn't unusual for a bank to see.

You can't really control what the bank reports or if you become subject to an audit, so as long as you're not breaking any laws, which you're not, then don't sweat it. As many of us have said, we have similar experiences in company reimbursement and haven't had the trouble you seem to be trying to avoid.

Banks are supposed to make note of deposits of 10k and more per the patriot act, especially anything suspicious, [...].

Those $10k+ currency-transaction reports (CTRs) that are filed by banks with the IRS are only triggered by cash-based transactions (or cash equivalents), not by depositing a check, personal, corporate or otherwise.

So in your case, no CTR for you.