Financial Resolution of Partnership Disputes: Article 4–Identifying and Adjusting Personal Expenses

By Serena Morones

April 22, 2014

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Identifying and Adjusting Personal Expenses

By Serena Morones, CPA, ASA, ABV, CFE

When a dispute arises between partners, a common allegation includes that one or more partners used partnership funds to pay personal expenses.  Use of partnership funds for personal reasons can give rise to legal claims including breach of fiduciary duty, civil fraud, income tax evasion, and other claims.

Before a fair resolution of a dispute can be reached, the parties should identify and adjust the personal expenses of any of the partners that have been paid with partnership funds and deducted as a partnership expense.

This article summarizes authoritative guidance that defines a valid business expense, lists types of expenses we most typically identify as personal, and prescribes correct accounting treatments to correct personal expenses.

Authoritative Guidance Defining a Valid Business Expenses

The two primary sources for the definition of a valid business expense include the US Tax Code, and Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

US Tax Code

Internal Revenue Code Section 162(a) states as follows:

“In general There shall be allowed as a deduction all the ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on any trade or business, including—

(1) a reasonable allowance for salaries or other compensation for personal services actually rendered;

(2) traveling expenses (including amounts expended for meals and lodging other than amounts which are lavish or extravagant under the circumstances) while away from home in the pursuit of a trade or business; and

(3) rentals or other payments required to be made as a condition to the continued use or possession, for purposes of the trade or business, of property to which the taxpayer has not taken or is not taking title or in which he has no equity.”

The key descriptive terms provided above by the US Tax Code for evaluating a valid business expense are “ordinary and necessary.”

The Internal Revenue Service gives further definition of “ordinary and necessary” in IRS Publication 535 as follows:

“An ordinary expense is one that is common and accepted in your trade or business. A necessary expense is one that is helpful and appropriate for your trade or business. An expense does not have to be indispensable to be considered necessary.”[1]

While there is case law[2] expanding on the meaning of ordinary and necessary, I find that the case analysis provides no brighter line definition of ordinary and necessary than the tax code, but suggests the application of common sense to the specific facts and circumstances of each case.

I interpret the concept of an ordinary expense as an expense that could commonly be found in a similar business.  I view the concept of a necessary expense as one that helps the achievement of the business mission.  The process of applying these guidelines to each case is subjective.  However, an experienced accounting professional can identify the patterns in business expenses that emerge over time through exposure to a wide variety of businesses, and form a reasoned decision about what types of expenses qualify as ordinary and necessary.

Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) Guidance

Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Concept Statement 6 defines ten interrelated elements that are directly related to measuring performance and status of an entity.  One of these elements is Expenses, defined as:

“…outflows or other using up of assets or incurrences of liabilities (or a combination of both) from delivering or producing goods, rendering services, or carrying out other activities that constitute the entity’s ongoing major or central operations.”

GAAP focuses its definition of an expense on outflows that result from an entity’s ongoing major or central operations.  Logic would then contrast “major or central” to minor or obscure and suggest that expenses that have a minor or obscure contribution to operations would be considered non-business related.   I view the language of this GAAP guidance to be similar with the US Tax Code requirement that an expense must be necessary.

Common Categories of Personal Expenses

The following is a list of the most common examples of personal expenses we see expensed through partnerships or other small businesses:

1. Automobile expenses: expensing all of the cost of a personal auto when the business doesn’t use an automobile or when the auto is partially used for commuting or personal travel.
2. Credit card charges: charging all types of small personal purchases on company credit cards.  We commonly see the entire credit card paid by the business and insufficient accounting for specific personal charges on the card.
3. Charges at large retailers: buying both business and personal items from a large retailer. Stores such as Costco or Amazon.com offer a large variety of business and personal products and services.  Without proper documentation practices in place, business owners can blend personal purchases with business purchases without detection.
4. Meals: expensing meals without substantiation.  Small business owners often fail to keep adequate documentation for meals expensed to the business.
5. Travel expense: expensing airfare, hotel and meals for family members or entirely personal trips.
6. Fitness or country club dues.
7. Personal telephone: expensing the entire cell phone family plan.
8. Personal home upkeep: paying home utility bills, maintenance expenses or housekeepers.
9. Professional services:  expensing legal personal legal or accounting services, such as divorce attorneys.
10. Wages to family members:  Expensing payments to family members who are not actually working, or expensing college tuition.11. Contractor payments: expensing payments made to contractors for home remodel or the improvement of other personal assets.

Expenses in a Gray Area

Morones Analytics is often hired to evaluate expenses recorded in the accounting records of a business and determine if a business owner has improperly deducted personal expenses.  Sometimes we find obvious examples of personal expenses recorded in the books of the business.  Other times we find expenses that fall into a gray area.  In our practice we call these expenses Discretionary Expenses.

Discretionary Expenses are expenses that may be common, but are not clearly necessary or unnecessary. One business owner may choose to spend more money on a category of expense than another business owner in the same line of business. The word discretionary focuses on the choice or preference of the business owner.

One example of a discretionary expense is a high volume of meals and entertainment.  Some business owners may feel a need to entertain clients frequently, while another owner in the same line of business does not spend as much money on meals and entertainment.

Another example that can fall into the category of discretionary expense is a higher level of compensation and benefits paid to employees.  One business owner may feel that  above market employee compensation is justified, while another will pay a market level of compensation and benefits.

When evaluating a partnership dispute, we attempt to identify and summarize what we consider to be discretionary expenses separately from either clearly personal or clearly business expenses, to inform the parties about the expenses.  We may not make any adjustments related to discretionary expenses for purposes of a capital account analysis, but we may make adjustments related to discretionary expenses in order to normalize the income statements for purposes of a business valuation.

Substantiating Business Expenses

In order to deduct a business expense for tax purposes, the business must be able to substantiate or prove certain elements of the expense through adequate documentary evidence, such as receipts, canceled checks, or bills.  According to the IRS, documentary evidence ordinarily will be considered adequate if it shows the amount, date, place, and essential character of the expense. In addition, you must generally provide a written statement of the business purpose of an expense. [3]   For example, a restaurant receipt is enough to substantiate a business meal if it has the name and location of the restaurant, the number of people served, the date and amount of the expense..

With the growing number of online purchases, more businesses are paying for expenses with credit cards.  While credit card statements demonstrate that something was purchased, statements alone do not adequately support deductibility as they only show who was paid, how much, and when, but not the essential character of the expense. Identification of only the vendor name, the amount and the date of transaction is not adequate to support deductibility.  The business owner should keep the original email receipt that describes itemized details the products or services purchased, to satisfy the requirement for documentation of the essential character of the expense.

Accounting for Personal Expenses Paid by a Partnership

There are two options for accounting for personal expenses paid by a partnership on behalf of a partner (who we will call Partner P).  The first option is to account for the personal expense as a distribution to Partner P.  The second option is to record the expense as a loan to Partner P.

Treating the personal expense as a distribution to Partner P will reduce Partner P’s capital account.  If the expense was previously recorded as an expense of the business, the correcting journal entry would be to debit  Partner P’s capital account and credit the expense account where it was originally recorded.  Because Partner P’s capital account has been reduced, upon dissolution, that partner will receive lower proceeds of dissolution by the amount of the personal expense that was recorded as a distribution, effectively causing Partner P to repay the personal expense.

If the personal expenses are treated as a loan to Partner P, the correcting entry is to debit to an asset called Loan from Partner P and credit the expense account where it was originally recorded.  The partners could either agree to establish loan repayment terms, or the loan would have to be repaid out of dissolution proceeds, reducing the proceeds to Partner P.  Treating the expense as a loan may provide the partnership with an opportunity to calculate reasonable interest on the loan to Partner P, to compensate the partnership for Partner P’s use of partnership funds.

Under either accounting treatment, the correcting entry would cause the income of the partnership to increase.  The corrected income would  be taken into account in determining final capital account balances and any business valuation.

Please email me at [email protected] with any feedback or suggestions for topic areas that you think I should cover in this series.

Serena Morones, CPA, ASA, ABV, CFE

• Financial Resolution of Partnership Disputes
• Personal Expenses

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About Serena Morones

Serena Morones specializes in forensic accounting, damage analysis for litigation and business valuation. She has helped lead numerous complex cases to successful damage conclusions, through expert testimony or settlement.

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