Travel Reimbursement Confusion: Should It Go to My Salary Account or a Separate One?

I have a doubt regarding travel reimbursement. Can the travel reimbursement be credited to the salary account only, or not? Right now, there is a practice of crediting the reimbursements to a separate account, but it seems it's more convenient to credit it to the salary account only. Kindly guide me with the correct practice to follow.

Thank you.

Regards,
Sowmya Hegde

Travel reimbursement shall be paid in cash or credited to any of his/her accounts. There is no restriction on that.

Thank you, Jeevarathnam. There might be a conflict if the reimbursement is credited to the salary account. Many employees say that it is taxable if credited to their salary account along with the salary, so they prefer to have the reimbursement credited to other accounts. Can you please suggest the general practice that is commonly followed in most companies now?

Hello ma'am, this is not the income or expense of the employee; instead, I believe it is the expense of the employer. Many companies credit this amount in their accounts.

What the employees are claiming is correct. Even if the amount is credited to any account other than the employee's, the IT department may treat it as income for the employee. However, the employee must justify the same as it is just a reimbursement and not income. The IT department will consider all money deposits from various accounts, not just from the salary account.

Alternatively, if you can pay by cash, that is better.

In law and practice, it is wrong to credit any such reimbursements to salary accounts.

Regards,
Sameer Paranjape
Advocate (Labour Law Consultant)
Pune
[Phone Number Removed For Privacy Reasons]

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Reimbursement Credit to Salary Account

The question raised by Sowmya is whether reimbursements can be credited to the Salary Account or not. Here is a simple guideline: if it is a reimbursement, the amount is payable to the claimant through any source, i.e., by way of credit to his/her account or in cash. The mode of payment is totally immaterial. The only impact Ms. Sowmya should check is that the amount received by her as reimbursement of expenses is not included and shown in her taxable income.

In many companies, the amount payable to the employee is credited only once at the time of salary by one single amount, which is also shown in the salary slip/certificate. It will be difficult to keep track of two different accounts, i.e., Salary Account and Other Income. As far as my knowledge goes, there are no specific guidelines given for the mode of payment of expenses incurred by the employee, i.e., Cash/Bank/Salary Account/Other Bank Account.

Regards,
Ramakant

Please find the link below. It may help you.

https://www.citehr.com/461757-convey...orms-part.html

Thanks,
Bijay

As seniors have already advised, I would like to add a few things for your information only.

Tracing Accounts with the Same PAN Card

If two accounts are opened in the same name with the same PAN Card number, all the entries affected through many banks for that particular PAN number can be traced.

Tax Components for Salary

Secondly, the tax components for salary are calculated by the employer, and the TDS is deducted only for the salary, not for the reimbursement. The employee is not directly liable for the tax since it has to be deducted by the employer.

I hope this clarifies your query. If not, please feel free to write. We will be glad to guide you further.