Fact Check: Do You Have to Reimburse Mileage?

Corrects the common belief that "there must be some federal mileage rule." The federal floor is only the kickback rule (§531.35), which only triggers when minimum-wage workers' expenses push them below $7.25/hr. For salaried or higher-paid workers, federal imposes no mileage duty at all.

"Five figures per employee" matches the article's worked example exactly ($39K principal compounding to $54K with interest, before attorney fees, on a single employee).

A geographic test rather than a behavioral one — the rule applies based on where the employee works, not what they do. The quick read now names NH, ND, and SD rather than bundling them, and preserves the narrower/contract-based caveat for states such as Massachusetts, Iowa, Minnesota, DC, New York, Pennsylvania, and Seattle.

Reader-facing rendering of the §2802(b) + §2802(c) penalty mechanism. "Three years" matches the §338(a) SOL; "from the date each expense was incurred" matches §2802(b)'s text. The article describes this mechanism in mistake #2.

Enumerates the six broad-duty states in both prose and bullet form so the reader sees the jurisdictions without having to open the full article.

Reader-facing rendering of §1.62-2's tax treatment. The non-accountable alternative converts reimbursement to W-2 wages plus payroll tax (article's mistake #5).

Math check: 18,000 × $0.725 = $13,050/year ≈ $13,000 ✓.

The issue is the inadequacy of a $200 flat allowance against a high-mileage driver's actual costs, not the lump-sum method itself — Gattuso permits lump-sum methods when adequate. The "almost always under what's owed" hedge reflects that the rule is fact-dependent on the gap between allowance and actual cost.

The "employees can recover the gap" framing captures the rebuttable-presumption mechanic from Gattuso without overstating — employees can rebut with actual-cost evidence; they don't always do so. AAA's 77¢ figure is the article's anchor for actual costs.

72.5¢ matches the article's number exactly. "As the default" matches the article's "de-facto private-sector benchmark" framing.

Thai + IL §9.5 applied to the remote-work-internet scenario. The categorical "that's a paid expense" matches the article's framing that remote-work expenses are reimbursable in both states.

"A slice of the bill" is the reader-facing rendering of "reasonable percentage" from Cochran. The case isn't named in the quick-read prose (the case names live in the article), but the underlying Cochran rule generates the trap.

The asymmetric close — pennies per trip if you pay vs 3–4 years of back-pay + interest + fees if you don't. The specific penalty mechanism (10% interest + attorney fees) is scoped to California in the prose; Illinois has independent penalty teeth flagged separately. The "write one policy at the IRS rate and apply it everywhere" maxim matches the article's through-line.