"Take your spouse to a nice holiday dinner and expense it"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH works for a European based company. They didn't include the US team in the holiday party and instead said take your spouse out to a nice holiday dinner and expense it.

What amount do you think is reasonable for a "nice holiday dinner"?

That's illegal.

How so? It's no different than a spouse accompanying the employee to a company paid holiday party.

It doesn’t meet the tax requirements to “expense it” if that’s the manner it was used.

I think they meant expense it to the company for reimbursement

[Anonymous]

I’m ts not illegal but it’s taxable income to you so unless the company is cheating on taxes it will be reported as income to you. So if you spend $500 and have a 30% marginal rate, you’ll have to pay another $150 in taxes so you’re really only getting $350.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$200 tops. I worked for a European company and they are more frugal with funds. Salaries are lower, taxes are higher.

This. I think most European countries would be quite surprised by a $500 dinner bill.

Companies, not countries!

yeah but this sort of thing is more expensive there

Actually it is not. Have been spending lots of time in European capitals lately and am consistently shocked at how cheap restaurants are compared to DC. The inflation here has been insane, but EU nice restaurants stayed flat apparently and now much lower than here. Colleagues in EU were shocked to hear some of the average DC prices. And this is in pricey Western EU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$200 tops. I worked for a European company and they are more frugal with funds. Salaries are lower, taxes are higher.

This. I think most European countries would be quite surprised by a $500 dinner bill.

Companies, not countries!

yeah but this sort of thing is more expensive there

Actually it is not. Have been spending lots of time in European capitals lately and am consistently shocked at how cheap restaurants are compared to DC. The inflation here has been insane, but EU nice restaurants stayed flat apparently and now much lower than here. Colleagues in EU were shocked to hear some of the average DC prices. And this is in pricey Western EU.

And based on this I would do 200 max unless they tell you otherwise in advance. But even then 200-250 max.

[Anonymous]

If the two of us go out to a nice restaurant it’s usually $150-200. A very good one is $200-300. I’d go no higher than that as I believe in treating company money like my money.

[Anonymous]

We got this at my job once with a stated cap of $200. In this case, I’d cap myself around $300-350

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$200 tops. I worked for a European company and they are more frugal with funds. Salaries are lower, taxes are higher.

This. I think most European countries would be quite surprised by a $500 dinner bill.

Companies, not countries!

yeah but this sort of thing is more expensive there

I’ve worked for 3 Euro companies and they’d never allow their European employees to expense the equivalent of $500 there.

[Anonymous]

European are weird about this stuff and $s spent. That said I would book something nice but not a $500/head chefs table with wine pairing.

[Anonymous]

Most companies the T&E for food no one looks at

[Anonymous]

My husband works at a European company as a sales director and I agree w the people that said they’re more frugal. I’d say 250 for dinner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most companies the T&E for food no one looks at

If this is a holiday gift and it’s a European company they will definitely look at it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most companies the T&E for food no one looks at

If this is a holiday gift and it’s a European company they will definitely look at it

Depends. I worked at an European company 10 years and my US division made a boatload and we just took it out of earnings. Now if you are losing money they care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m ts not illegal but it’s taxable income to you so unless the company is cheating on taxes it will be reported as income to you. So if you spend $500 and have a 30% marginal rate, you’ll have to pay another $150 in taxes so you’re really only getting $350.

Why would it be taxable income? I don’t pay taxes on the holiday party my employer throws. If this is a substitute why would it be income?

[Anonymous]

300 bucks.

[Anonymous]

Ask the supervisor. My husband got that once but it was $100 limit.