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.
Natasha Holiday is Managing Director, Co-Head of Infrastructure East, RBC Capital Markets, where she structures debt and sells bonds in the public markets to raise capital on behalf of large city and state governments to fund public infrastructure. She served as MSRB Board Chair for the 2026 fiscal year.
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Dave Coenen is a Dutch chartered accountant and PhD researcher at Maastricht University, where his research focuses on the legal, accounting and corporate tax treatment of NFTs and tokenized assets. He is the developer of the ELFT Tokenized Assets Method, a framework for analyzing tokenized positions based on their underlying rights and obligations.
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:
