The university has updated its travel policy to clarify remote workforce travel and ensure compliance with Internal Revenue Service (IRS) policy. See 22.1 Travel for Faculty and Staff, section g. of the university Policy Manual for details.
If you are allowing employees to be reimbursed for trips to campus, please communicate this policy to your remote employees .
22.1 Travel for Faculty and Staff
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) policy
The IRS differentiates between required and voluntary remote employee to determine if the travel reimbursement is taxable.
Employer required
- Employer required (g.1) refers to when the department hires an employee with the specific purpose of individual being located in that city/state. An example would be a federal liaison officer.
Voluntary requests and approved
- The majority of our remote workforce is likely considered in the second category voluntarily requests and approved (g.2). Any travel to campus would be considered taxable to the individual.
- Requests for reimbursement should be supported by written documentation to the employee. Expenses should be actual expenses incurred and sent to your human resources representative for processing.
- In order to simplify the process for adding these expenses to an employee’s W2, university human resources (UHR) has created a new special compensation transaction called “Remote Travel Reimbursement Special Compensation”.
- UHR copied the existing workflow routing paths from the “Employment Agreement -- Transition and Relocation” forms for each of the new “Remote Travel Reimbursement” form types, except for Merit.
- Since there is no “Transition and Relocation” form type for Merit, routings for “Employment Agreement – Incentive” were used.
- A post org of USS supervisors has also been added to review the actual expenses submitted to ensure compliance with policy.
- 22.1 g.3 refers to when reimbursement of expenses will not be permitted.
FAQs about travel policy for remote workforce
We have some employees who travel to campus from other states and countries and the travel can get quite expensive. The department typically puts these expenses on pcards and/or pays the hotel directly. How should we handle taxation for these expenses since they wouldn’t be on the special comp form?
The expenses need to be paid out of pocket. Procurement cards should not be used. The entire issue is the complexity of reporting the taxability of the travel expense so we would have to payroll deduct these as personal expense.
Are we still required to set up a trip in pro-trav for the travel, even though we will not be doing a reimbursement through that system?
We do need trips set up in ProTrav, primarily because we want to have this information on file should we need to know they were on business during this time frame for workers comp or other liability reasons.
If the expenses must be paid out of pocket, can we reimburse prior to the trip taking place? For instance, we have an employee who works in New Zealand and comes to campus once per year. Can we reimburse him for the flight purchase as soon as he makes the purchase, or do we have to wait until he has completed the travel?
Departments should follow existing policy, which is to create the transaction after the trip has completed.
When is a remote work reimbursement considered taxable vs. non-taxable?
If an employee originally worked on-campus and then requested to go 100% remote, any reimbursement for remote work expenses is considered taxable.
However, if we hired someone out of state through a competitive recruitment process—because they were the most qualified candidate and there was no better local option—the reimbursement may be considered non-taxable, since remote work was a condition of employment from the start.Is there a “grandfathered” in clause for those approved to be remote prior to the implementation of this policy?
No. The university will not grandfather anyone.
Is it permissible to gross up the amount so they get the amount they paid?
No this is not permissible. Employees must be reimbursed for actual costs only.
If an employee inadvertently uses a PCard for travel arrangements, should the employee reimburse the university through payroll deduction?
Correct. An employee should not use a PCard to make travel arrangements to campus, and if that occurs, must reimburse the university through payroll deduction.
Do all trips to campus require a “trip request” even if reimbursed via Payroll to serve as written documentation that it was pre-approved.
Yes, all trips to campus require a trip request for the payroll transactions.