Cellphone Reimbursment

[Guest Blackdog]

Our IT department is trying to roll out a new cellphone (smartphone) plan to the employees. They are considering two options for reimbursing the employees.

1. Continue with providing company issued phones where the company pays for the phone and monthly network (call and data usage) service fees. Under Section 2043 of the Small Business Jobs Creation Act of 2010 (Notice 2011-72) the company would not have to "hard review" and document business vs. personal use of the device.

2. Institute a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) environment where employees bring what their own personal device (ie, iPhone, Andrio, Blackberry) and negotiate their own data plan with the provider of their choice. The Company would then provide the employee with an allowance to cover the business use of the device each month.

Is anyone using option #2 above and if so, how is it being administered? Option #2 would take the responsiblity of owning phones and championing certain devices over others out of the Company's hands and putting it into the employees. Unfortunately the taxing of this plan would seem to be administratively burdensome.

Comments?

Thank you,

[leevena]

We do option 2. It is very similar to what you state in your post; we purchase, maintain and pay just like it was a personal only phone. Company provides a fixed amount for phone and a fixed amount for data plan. If I spend less, they reimburse me what I spent. If I spend more, it comes out of my pocket. Every month I submit expense report and copy of bill.

Hope this answers your question.