Subject Area: Procurement/Disbursement
Responsible Office: Comptroller's
Approval: V.P. for Administration and Chief Financial Officer
Originally Issued: October 1992
Revised: May 19, 2004
Refer Questions To: Gia Kastelic, 773-702-1978, g-kastelic@uchicago.edu

PURPOSE:   To establish policy for the reimbursement of individual membership fees and dues for any business, social, dining, airline and hotel club.

POLICY:

1. Membership fees and dues for the Quadrangle Club or any airline, car rental, or hotel club are not reimbursable under this policy.



2. Individual membership fees and dues in other business, social and dining clubs, will be paid only in cases where the benefits derived are in accordance with the University's mission of instruction, research and public service. The membership must support the individual's job related responsibilities.



1. Effective January 1, 1994, the portion of dues not used for business purposes is considered by the IRS as taxable income reportable on the individual's W-2 statement. Therefore, when submitting the payment request, a memo must be attached which indicates the percent that this membership will be used for business purposes.



2. Payment requests for individual membership fees and dues must be approved in writing, as appropriate, by the Dean, Vice-President, Provost or President.



3. Per the federal government's policy stated in The Office of Management and Budget Circular A21, "the cost of membership in any civic, community, social, dining or country club" is unallowable because the membership dues do not benefit federally sponsored work. Therefore these costs cannot be charged to Ledger 5 Federal Grant and Contract accounts.



4. All payments of individual membership fees and dues must be charged to Financial Accounting System subaccount 9906. See Financial Policy No. 1013 for the University policy on unallowable costs.