My wife called the accountant this morning to ask if the company could provide a YMCA membership for it's employees (me and my wife) as a benifit. The answer was a bit confusing. The accountant said the company can not pay directly, but we could pay the YMCA ourselves, then get reimbursed through the company. I assume we'd also have to claim the reimbursement as income on our personal returns under these rules?
Does anyone do this? Seems like it should be legal with IRS since the YMCA's website offers "corporate memberships".
I've heard of this done many times with organizations like the Y, a gym, etc... Not sure why they do that though. When Wendell and I had a gym membership we paid directly and the company he worked for reimbursed us. I don't think we had to claim it as personal income. Course that was over 13 years ago...things may have changed since then.
I looked into it a bit more and this is the way it is normally done. The IRS rules are clear that "club memberships" are a taxible income, so this makes sense to me now.