Her Turn
MONEY MEETS TAX · EPISODE 10
Anaheim · Early 2025
Money & Tax in this episode
A bigger role at work · Project expenses and reimbursement · W-2 employee business costs
At 4:12 on a Monday, Daisy’s boss asked if she had five minutes.
Daisy immediately tried to remember what she had forgotten.
Nothing came to mind.
She walked into the office anyway.
“We got the Newport Beach renovation.”
“I heard.”
“I want you running day-to-day.”
Daisy waited.
“Me?”
“You’ve been asking for a project this size.”
“I have.”
“So.”
The project had been floating around the office for weeks.
A full renovation.
Clients who cared about the details.
Enough budget to do things properly.
The kind of project Daisy usually worked on without quite owning.
She looked at her boss.
“What does day-to-day mean?”
“Design development. Client meetings. Site coordination. Vendors. I’ll stay involved, but you’ll drive it.”
Daisy nodded.
“When do we start?”
“Thursday.”
She smiled.
“Of course.”
That evening, Evan was at the dining table finishing a consulting call when Daisy came home.
She waited until he took off his headphones.
“I got the Newport project.”
“The one you wanted?”
“Yeah.”
He closed the laptop.
“Lead?”
“Basically.”
“That’s big.”
“I know.”
She put her bag on the counter.
Evan watched her for a second.
“You look happy.”
“I am.”
“When does it start?”
“Thursday.”
He smiled.
“That seems reasonable.”
“Thank you.”
The first client meeting ran almost two hours.
The second produced a new kitchen layout.
By the third, Daisy had learned that one client liked to make decisions quickly and reconsider them slowly.
The other did the opposite.
She liked them.
Mostly.
The project gave her more of the parts of the job she wanted.
She wasn’t just finding options for someone else to present.
She was presenting them.
When the contractor had a question about a ceiling detail, he called Daisy.
When a vendor said the tile was backordered, Daisy decided what to show the clients instead.
When the clients asked why one stone worked better than another, everyone at the table looked at her.
One afternoon, two slabs were leaning against a wall at the showroom.
The client pointed between them.
“If it were your house, which one?”
Daisy looked at both.
“The one on the left.”
“Why?”
“The other one is prettier by itself.”
The client waited.
“But?”
“It’s going to fight everything around it.”
Daisy pointed toward the sample board on the table.
“The left one lets the rest of the room work.”
The client looked at it again.
“Let’s do the left one.”
On the way back to the office, Daisy’s boss said, “Good call.”
That was all.
Daisy thought about it for the rest of the drive.
By February, her calendar had changed.
Site meetings appeared before work.
Vendor appointments landed in the middle of the day.
Client calls moved because a spouse was traveling or a contractor needed an answer before morning.
Some evenings were still hers.
Fewer than before.
Evan noticed because he had started asking before putting consulting calls on weekends.
“What are you doing Saturday?”
Daisy was taking containers out of the refrigerator.
“I have a showroom appointment.”
“What time?”
“Ten.”
“How long?”
“Not sure. Maybe a couple of hours.”
Evan opened the shared calendar on his phone.
“I’m trying to fit a client call around it.”
Daisy leaned over.
“Put it after lunch. I should be done by then.”
“I was thinking one.”
“Give me until one-thirty. Just in case.”
Evan moved the appointment.
Daisy watched him.
“You need buffer time now too.”
“I’ve always understood buffer time.”
“For your own calendar.”
Evan looked up.
“That feels unnecessary.”
Daisy smiled.
“I’m learning.”
Her schedule wasn’t the only thing that had changed.
The Newport project involved more driving.
Office to the house.
House to a showroom.
Showroom to a vendor.
Parking.
Occasionally a sample or rush delivery she paid for herself because waiting for someone else to process it would take longer than buying it and submitting the receipt.
The firm reimbursed those costs.
In theory.
In practice, Daisy had to submit them first.
At the end of February, someone from the office stopped by her desk.
“You know you have two expense reports open?”
Daisy looked up.
“I do?”
“January and February.”
“Oh.”
“You have receipts in there?”
“Yes.”
“Then send them.”
“I will.”
The woman looked at her.
Daisy smiled.
“Today.”
That night, the expense form was open on Daisy’s laptop.
So were eleven other things.
Evan walked behind her.
“What’s that?”
“Expenses.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He stopped beside the table.
There was a stack of receipts next to the fruit bowl.
Evan looked at them.
Daisy followed his eyes.
“Please don’t look at them like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like they’ve personally disappointed you.”
Evan smiled.
“I was going to ask why they’re next to the fruit bowl.”
“Temporary filing system.”
“That explains everything.”
Daisy started adding the receipts.
Parking.
Mileage between work locations.
A courier.
Samples.
A rush delivery.
The total came to a little under three hundred dollars.
Evan looked at the screen.
“You’ve been floating three hundred dollars for your employer?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“I know.”
He pointed at the screen.
“But they’ll reimburse all of this?”
“They should.”
“Then definitely submit it.”
“I am.”
Evan looked at the open form.
Daisy looked at him.
“I actually am.”
“I believe you.”
She clicked through another screen.
Then stopped.
“If I forgot to submit it, couldn’t I just deduct it?”
Evan turned back toward her.
“I don’t think that should be Plan B.”
Daisy laughed.
“Very technical.”
“You’re the one asking the guy with a tax savings account.”
“That’s why I asked.”
“That is still not a credential.”
Daisy smiled.
Evan came back to the table.
“If the firm is going to reimburse a legitimate work expense, getting the reimbursement seems a lot better than hoping there’s a deduction for it.”
“That part makes sense.”
“Especially when they owe you almost three hundred dollars.”
Daisy looked at the total.
“Okay. That part is motivating.”
She clicked Submit.
“There.”
Evan nodded.
“I’m proud of you.”
Daisy smiled without looking at him.
“Go away.”
The reimbursement showed up the following week.
By then, Daisy had spent more.
This time she kept the receipts in one envelope.
Evan noticed.
He didn’t say anything.
March got busier.
The Newport project had moved from drawings and samples into the part where decisions started becoming expensive to change.
Daisy checked dimensions twice.
She confirmed finish numbers in emails.
She took photos of labels before samples disappeared back into drawers.
At home, she had started leaving her work bag near the front door instead of upstairs.
One Thursday, she came home after eight.
Evan had already eaten.
There was a plate covered in the refrigerator.
“You ate without me.”
“You told me to.”
“I know.”
She opened the refrigerator.
“I’m just noticing.”
Evan smiled.
“How was the meeting?”
“Good.”
“How good?”
“They approved the lighting.”
“The expensive one?”
Daisy looked at him.
“You remember that?”
“You told me the number.”
She smiled.
“Of course you remember the number.”
She put the plate in the microwave.
Evan was rinsing a glass when he said, “Still glad you took it?”
Daisy didn’t answer right away.
The microwave turned.
“I’m tired.”
“I know.”
He looked at her.
“Still glad?”
Daisy smiled.
“Yes.”
The microwave beeped.
“Very.”
A week later, the contractor called while Daisy was in another meeting.
Then the client called.
Then the vendor.
By five-thirty, the problem had been reduced to a cabinet depth, a wall condition, and one decision that had to be made before the installers arrived the next morning.
Daisy drove to the house.
The contractor showed her the issue.
She measured it.
Asked two questions.
Then made the call.
The next morning, nothing happened.
Which was exactly what she wanted.
No phone call.
No emergency.
No one asking why something didn’t fit.
At lunch, Daisy opened her email.
There was a message from the client.
Thanks for handling yesterday.
Glad you caught it.
Daisy read it once.
Then went back to work.
Friday evening, Evan opened their shared calendar to add a client call for Saturday morning.
The time was already blocked.
DAISY — INSTALL
He looked at the next hour.
Blocked.
The one after that too.
Evan moved his call to Sunday.
The Tax Behind the Story
Daisy’s project costs raise a different tax question from Evan’s consulting expenses because Daisy is a W-2 employee.
When an employer reimburses legitimate business expenses under an accountable plan, the expenses generally must have a business connection, be properly substantiated, and any excess reimbursement must be returned. Reimbursements that satisfy those rules generally are not treated as wages.
For 2025, most W-2 employees generally could not claim a federal deduction for unreimbursed employee business expenses. California did not follow that federal rule and continued to allow qualifying unreimbursed employee expenses as miscellaneous itemized deductions, subject to California’s requirements and the 2%-of-AGI floor.
For Daisy, though, the simpler answer comes first: if she incurs a legitimate business expense for her employer and the firm has a reimbursement process for it, she should use it. Simply choosing not to request an available reimbursement should not be assumed to create a personal tax deduction.
Want the tax rules behind the story?
Employee Business Expenses: Reimbursement vs. Deduction
A deeper look at accountable plans, business reimbursements, mileage and other employee costs, unreimbursed W-2 expenses, and the difference between federal and California treatment.
READ THE TAX GUIDE →
Next Episode
Not Yet
By spring, the question Evan and Daisy left alone in December has started coming back.
They still aren’t ready to call it a plan.