Originally Posted by
Often1
Many people are in jobs where they do not have a customer-facing role and accordingly enteratinment expenses are not part of the reimbursement.
On the other hand, it seems excessive to require receipts below the tax amount and even worse to deny reimbursement for the non-alcohol part of a receipt which happens to show alcohol on it.
Better to join many UK, Canadian & US companies and simply provide a per diem allowance based on destination. If one chooses to eat crackers for breakfast & lunch and then splurge on dinner, what difference does it make?
Tax. In the U.S., per diem is considered as taxable income while reimbursement is not. Assuming a business person travels 4 days * 40 weeks = 160 days, $50 per day in meals (low in major cities in the U.S.). That's a $8,000 taxable income difference and $2,400 tax liability (good for a J ticket), assuming a 30% individual effective tax rate.
(This does not represent any tax or financial advice)