Travel Expenses

The worst part about business travel has to be filling out expense account forms. Around my office the accounting department threatens to force us to sit down and write them up. Only slightly less burdensome is keeping track of how much money in my checking account is mine and how much is company reimbursement for expenses that I have charged to my credit cards but have not yet paid. Expense It!

In Washington, another scandal has broken over excessive spending during a business conference. But travel experts predict the effect this time around will be limited. Four years ago, it was insurance giant American International Group Inc.that was slammed for holding a lavish executive retreat at a Dana Point resort after taking billions of dollars in government bailout money. In the face of harsh criticism of excessive spending amid a recession, corporations dramatically cut back on business travel, dealing a blow to hotels and airlines across the country.

Inglewood Mayor Edward Vincent has spent considerably more on travel in recent years than his City Council colleagues or the mayors of comparably sized cities, records show, and some of the expenses have no apparent connection to city business. Vincent defends his travel as beneficial to the city, and administrators say the city's travel policy allows elected officials to determine if a trip is appropriate.

With ex-presidents earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees and book deals, a bipartisan effort is underway in Congress to scale back taxpayer support for well-to-do former occupants of the Oval Office.   The Presidential Allowance Modernization Act seeks to amend a half-century-old law that sought to "maintain the dignity” of the office of the president. The proposal would provide a taxpayer supported pension of $200,000, about the same amount that they now receive.

The Board of Trustees of the Ventura County Community College District will hire an attorney to help determine whether Trustee Tom Ely and his wife, Ingrid, have violated district travel policies. The board voted Tuesday night to hire an attorney to review an independent audit of Tom Ely's travel expenses. The audit, commissioned by the board in March, found that Ely had charged $8,422 in questionable expenses for business trips he took during the past three years.

Former U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O'Brien stayed at pricey hotels while traveling on business and then sought to justify reimbursement by telling his secretary to falsely state that more affordable rooms were not available, an audit made public this week alleges. O'Brien was one of five U.S. attorneys whose travel expenses were singled out in the report by the Department of Justice's inspector general. The report found that some of O'Brien's claims for reimbursement were "inappropriate and egregious violations" of the travel policies that govern federal prosecutors.

Citing the tough economic times, City Councilman Earle Robitaille is advocating that City Council members pay for all their own travel expenses when on city business. Robitaille's proposal, which last week was sent to a council subcommittee for study, comes as three council members and a top city administrator are to fly to Washington this week to attend the National League of Cities Conference.

Planning that cruise to Mexico and wondering if you can write off part of it? Thinking about deducting your summer fling in Paris? The beginning of the peak summer vacation season is a good time to review rules governing tax deductions for travel expenses. Unfortunately, tax reform made those rules much tougher. For example, travel expenses not paid for by your employer are now, in most cases, considered part of miscellaneous expenses, which as a group are deductible only to the extent that they exceed 2% of your adjusted gross income.

Since taking office as Inglewood mayor in 1983, Edward Vincent has failed to itemize and explain at least $50,000 in travel-related expenses paid by his campaign fund, records show. State law requires that such expenditures be itemized to show who got the money and the purpose of the expense. City records and campaign statements also suggest that in one instance the mayor may have charged a trip to his campaign fund while being reimbursed by the city for the same travel.

The Saddleback Valley Unified School District board has tightened its travel and conference spending in response to the county bankruptcy. In the past, the board approved all its budgeted trips with a single vote at the start of the fiscal year. On Thursday, the board moved to consider future trips individually. The board voted 3 to 2 to adopt the new approach. Trustees Debbie Hughes and Frank L. Ury were opposed.

To save a few bucks on your next business trip, stay clear of cities like Paris, London and New York and instead consider trips to such places as Las Vegas, Dallas and New Orleans. Those are the findings of a study released last week by a major travel website that calculated the cost of visits to the world's top 50 tourist destinations. The report by the website TripAdvisor ranked the cities by calculating some basic traveler expenses: the average cost of one night in a four-star hotel, a 5-mile taxi ride, a large cheese pizza and a dry martini.

Should government agencies pick up the meal costs when spouses of elected officials attend out-of-town meetings and conferences? A Southeast Los Angeles County water district did just that, to the tune of several thousand dollars. In explaining a policy change two years ago, a staffer for the Central Basin Municipal Water District wrote in an internal email that spouses "help bring a different atmosphere to the business discussions between directors and other guests. " The staffer acknowledged that the policy could result in "questioning by reporters and auditors on these types of reimbursements.

In July 2008, Sarah Palin was upset when a reporter inquired about state payment for family travel. On July 3, Palin's deputy press secretary, Sharon Leighow, emailed Palin a note saying she had spoken "at length" with Anchorage Daily News reporter Kyle Hopkins "about First Family travel. " "He asked about the Barrow trip and why the state should pay for Piper's travel expenses," wrote Leighow, referring to Palin's youngest daughter and a trip to Barrow on the state's remote North Slope.

Los Angeles' housing authority board voted Monday evening to fire the agency's chief executive, Rudolf Montiel. The move comes less than six months after Montiel faced the wrath of city leaders when his agency tried to evict nine tenants who had protested housing authority policies at Montiel's Rancho Cucamonga home. At the time, City Council members called Montiel "childlike" and accused him of acting like "Big Brother. " The eviction notices were later rescinded. Montiel has headed the agency ?

Several Los Angeles City Housing Authority Board members said Thursday they would welcome an audit by Controller Wendy Greuel of their travel expenses. The move comes after a CBS-TV Channel 2 report last month that board members spent more than $150,000 over the last two years on extravagant hotels and restaurants, and sometimes double dipped, accepting per diems for expenses while also paying for meals with agency credit cards. Agency staff has asked several board members to reimburse hundreds of dollars for such double-dipping charges.

Former U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O'Brien stayed at pricey hotels while traveling on business and then sought to justify reimbursement by telling his secretary to falsely state that more affordable rooms were not available, an audit made public this week alleges. O'Brien was one of five U.S. attorneys whose travel expenses were singled out in the report by the Department of Justice's inspector general. The report found that some of O'Brien's claims for reimbursement were "inappropriate and egregious violations" of the travel policies that govern federal prosecutors.

Valley College track Coach Mark Covert, frustrated by financial restraints placed on his program by the school and the L.A. Community College District, said he will resign following Saturday's state meet in Modesto. Covert was especially angered by the district's refusal to pay Valley's travel expenses for the state meet and last week's Southern California championships in Bakersfield.

Most business travel expenditures are just that--expended and gone. Now, however, a growing number of companies are applying to get some of the money they spend on international travel refunded through value-added-tax reclaim programs. Value-added tax, known as VAT, is essentially a sales tax on various products and services typically used by executives traveling in Europe.

Top administrators in Vernon, already among the highest-paid local officials in the state, racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in city-paid expenses on first-class flights, luxury hotels like the Ritz Carlton and limousine service, records reviewed by The Times show. The records, which cover 2005-2010, detail lavish travel expenses billed to the city by its top executives, including then-city administrators Donal O'Callaghan and Eric T. Fresch. Some of the trips occurred as recently as this year, when the city laid off employees and canceled the life and health insurance benefits of city workers' spouses and children because of budget problems.

Anyone who has recently traveled to a major U.S. city knows the shock of finding a hotel, car rental or restaurant bill laden with extra charges. It's a growing trend among cities to add bed taxes, airport concession taxes and other charges to visitors' bills in order to fund tourism marketing campaigns, airport improvements and other projects. Combined with sales taxes, the extra travel taxes add about $28 a day to the cost of a visitor's lodging, car rentals and meals in the nation's top 50 destination cities, according to a new study by the education and research arm of the National Business Travel Assn.