The company I work for is based in Houston, TX. I live in San Antonio and often am requested to make the 3+ hour drive to Houston for various reasons, mostly meetings. If I grab fast food for dinner, is that meal reimbursable?

It blows my mind that they are saying even though I am 3 hours away from home and staying in a hotel that my meals are not reimbursable if they are not "work" related.

I think it depends. It's unfortunate, but not unheard of. If they were nice they'd allow but don't really see it as required since you're back home the same day. I'm assuming these are same day trips of driving to Houston for a meeting and then back home that evening.

What time are you eating dinner? Are you eating in Houston or San Antonio? Unless you're getting home well after dinner time, I think this makes sense.

For example, just this week I was required to be in Houston for meetings in and out of the office. I was in a hotel for 3 nights. The one night we didn't have a company dinner, I stopped at Chick-fil-A at 7:30pm and picked up a #2 combo. I went back to my hotel and ate.
I turned in that receipt and my employer says it's not reimbursable because it wasn't "work" related.

If you're out of town bc of work, it's work related.

Does anyone know of a document that might state this? I don't think it's regulated but I thought I might ask.
The company's stance is that this type of travel meal would be not different from me working from home,. Trips to the Work office does not count as a travel meal. Only trips to the customer , or team meals.".

Yeah that's different, that's out of town for work and should be reimbursed. I don't know of any rule on that, but seems to be common practice at least.

Thank you, I wish I knew a way to change their stance. Total BS

If they're putting you up in a hotel, for however many nights, and paying... they should.

Meals? You'd be eating whether it was work related or not.

However, If it were me... and this is just me... I'd save every single receipt (for years if applicable). Contingent upon the terms of my eventual departure from the company, and if it wasn't favorable, I would present them with the copies of all those receipts and encourage them to remit the reimbursement. The encouragement has to be spelled out firmly and diplomatically. Likely if they've shorted me on meal reimbursements, they've shorted others. It's far less costly to satisfy one than one hundred...

In the few cases when I've been commissioned to draft correspondence on behalf of a client who was "shorted" by their employer, the employer always paid up. Always. Fair is fair.

On another note... are you being reimbursed for mileage?

Best wishes on the path you choose.

Honestly, I've never even heard of this. If you are traveling for work, your meals are reimbursed. Period. Sure there may be limits, caps, excluded items (alcohol) but they ****ing pay for you to eat.

I'm reimbursed for fuel, maintenance, travel, etc.
For whatever reason the only issue is this. It's been this way for months and it just rubs me the wrong way every time I submit reimbursement paperwork.

I could understand this if I was dining out but it's fast food.

Wow, I thought my company was cheap ($25 daily limit) ...but they're not near that level.

Your company sounds tchotchke and disrespectful. Sure... you eat regardless but a per diem with some very small guidelines around it is a simple and cheap way to show gratitude for somebody spending time away from home and family for work.

Probably costs the company more money enforcing $8 Chick-fil-A combos aren't charged than it would to just give a per diem to employees and not think about it or annoy employees.


Most bigger companies give like $50-100 limit per diems to everyone on the road... but even $25 limit with an alcohol constraint probably keeps basically everyone from gnashing their teeth about it.

Yeah, it's BS. It's made me think about my future with this company. I hate having animosity towards my employer but it's hard not to when they are cheap like this.

Geez. My company will fuss at us if we drive through and grab sandwiches for supper. Their take is "you would likely be sitting with your family at home, take the time, go have a sit down meal". My boss says to our team "you guys are out there working your tails off, the least I can do is buy you nice meals". The only direction we get is "don't get drunk and crash the pickup".

OilFieldIRI said:

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Yeah, it's BS. It's made me think about my future with this company. I hate having animosity towards my employer but it's hard not to when they are cheap like this.

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I'm guessing your company is small and has no formal guidelines... but have you checked on that to ensure that?

Choose your battles wisely and whatnot, but if there are company guidelines go try to find them and make sure your boss or whoever is approving your expenses actually knows what they are doing.

I'm not some weird uniondog pro worker person, but that sort of crap just isn't very nice and a super dumb line for a company to draw.

I looked in our employee handbook and there is no mention of reimbursement guidelines.
I will definitely choose my battles wisely, good advice.

Is this a big or small company? Did they reimburse you for this stuff in 2017 and stop in 2018? I think they may be misunderstanding the new tax laws regarding the tax deductability of "meals & entertainment".

I would expect them to provide you with a per diem when you travel out of town. But companies can and do have bad/crappy policies.

You would have to pay for your own meal is you were at home. However, you would probably feed yourself out of your weekly grocery run rather than having to eat out. However, if they are paying ALL of your vehicle expenses and you aren't paying any tax on that you are probably coming out ahead here.

The company has 150 employees. They do pay for the vehicle so maybe your right. I pay fuel and maintenance and am reimbursed. I am one month shy of completing my first year with the company and am the only remote employee the company has had in its brief 5 year history in the states.

https://www.klcpas.com/unreimbursed-employee-expenses-under-tax-reform/

I don't know why they are making an issue of the meals... maybe they don't understand that travel meals are still deductible under the new tax law. I think they should reimburse you... but what I think doesn't matter.

Regarding your vehicle expenses, it sounds they're basically paying for all of your vehicle expenses (fuel, repairs, maintenance) without regard to whether the miles you are driving are personal or business. Maybe they are including some amount on your W-2 as taxable for personal use. If they aren't, it might make the we're-not-reimbursing-you-for-dinners-you-have-to-pay-for-while-traveling pill a little easier to swallow.

OilFieldIRI said:

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I looked in our employee handbook and there is no mention of reimbursement guidelines.
I will definitely choose my battles wisely, good advice.

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If there's no formal guidelines and they are doing that for a Chickfila meal and you work for a 100+ employee company, then your boss sounds like a tool.

If you can't eat in your home town for some reason then it should be reimbursable.

Not that i really think it matters (aka they should reimburse you anyway) but are you working from home most the time, then going to the office in houston periodically? Or are you at a satellite office in your home town? Still ****ty, but could be thinking we're letting you work from home vs making you come in every day, thus we shouldn't pay your meals when actually here. Though I wouldn't think they'd pay your mileage either if that was their stance.

I work from home in San Antonio most of the time and only visit Houston (home office) when requested too.

It's irrelevant that you'd be eating at home anyway. If you just dropped $100 at HEB and your company decides to send you off to Houston the next day, do they expect you to take a cooler with that same food?

Is "the company" rejecting the meals or just your boss? I'd ask my HR rep if it was just your boss. I wouldn't push the issue, but ask for an explanation as it doesn't make sense as the only reason your forced to buy food is you're out of town for work.

I recently worked for a company that would only reimburse meals in your hometown IF you ate them at the airport. So, McDonalds next to the airport would not get reimbursed, McDonalds in the airport would get reimbursed.

I've also had the Malaysian expense checkers who scrutinized every receipt and would reject my claim if I left a tip that was greater than 15.00%.

Here's what the IRS has to say about your meal reimbursement:
https://www.irs.gov/faqs/small-business-self-employed-other-business/income-expenses/income-expenses-2

Quote:

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Generally, reimbursed non-entertainment-related meal expenses are deductible if your business trip is overnight or long enough that you need to stop for substantial sleep or rest to properly perform your duties.

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Good information, thank you.

I had a job where the company covered meals away from home on a road trip. Air trip was covered from and to the airport.

Road trip example: an overnight trip provided dinner and breakfast. 3 night would be dinner the first night through breakfast the last day.

OilFieldIRI said:

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The company has 150 employees. They do pay for the vehicle so maybe your right. I pay fuel and maintenance and am reimbursed. I am one month shy of completing my first year with the company and am the only remote employee the company has had in its brief 5 year history in the states.

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There's your problem right there. They don't have policies for your situation. You're on travel, but you're at the home office, which makes them forget that you are a (the) remote employee that is traveling when they're in Houston.

They likely see a dinner receipt for Houston and reject it. I would talk to your boss about it. Nothing accusatory, just ask him if that's actually the policy that they want to go with.

Good advice, I think I am going to have a conversation with him. If anything, all this does is create an awkward work environment. I'd rather speak about it and move on.

I work remotely in Houston and always get per diem whenever I travel for work that covers all meals. Even when I drove to Austin for a conference, per diem was given to me. Every company Ive worked for, large or small, gave me per diem or reimbursed all meals while traveling for work.

Sounds pretty crappy of your company not to reimburse your meals, but if you like your job and are happy, not sure if its worth rocking the boat by bringing this up. Wouldnt be a dealbreaker for me, especially since you get to work remotely, which I assume is a nice perk for you.

I work for a small company about the same size as yours. I am over our employee reimbursement plan & am the final approver before anything gets reimbursed. We have a policy that we follow, but I also keep a second thing in mind, reimbursable expenses are a small benefit for people who spend a lot of time away from home for the company. Little things go a long way (good or bad), so it's not worth pissing off employees over $10.

Not sure what the situation is regarding your remoteness. If the company was looking for someone to work remote in your hometown, then they should (in my opinion) pay for your meals. However if the job would be in Houston except for the fact that you didn't want to move and they agreed you could work from home, you may be on the hook.

I've seen situations where employees want to work from home outside of normal commuting distance. Typically (depending on company) they have to sign something that says the job is based in the office and they are on the hook to get themselves there, housed, and fed when requested in the office. From the company's standpoint, they aren't going to increase their costs due to you wanting to live somewhere else and them accommodating by allowing remote work. When this happens, I've seen sometimes where a manager will pay for lodging because they are nice but meals, due to the ability to be low cost, aren't covered.

Absolutely reimbursable. They should be happy you eat fast food.

If I'm traveling for work, I'm eating a meal that's equal to
the quality that I'm eating if I were home. If it's a problem, I won't travel. I don't abuse it really, but I definitely ain't skimping