On a related note:  I'm the treasurer of a 501c7 all-volunteer social fraternity group and I provided a "company debit card" to our chairman to assist in the travel and administrative portions of his duties.  I have been asking for purchase receipts and documentation for the last 3 months and received nothing but "I'll work on it" from him.  Last month I gave him a week to submit receipts or I would suspend his debit card.  He sent nothing nor contacted me and now board members are telling me I went too far despite having a fiduciary responsibility to the organization and are calling for an emergency meeting to force me to reinstate his card.  Is the chairman's poor planning/follow up justification for this pressure? --T.P. via email

I agree with you that the president ought to be providing receipts and other substantiation for his expenses and, unless there is some extraordinary non-apparent reason for the failure, that the pressure from the other board members is unjustified.  In the charity world, the IRS treats expenses that are not substantiated in accord with an accountable plan as an "automatic excess benefit" unless reported as compensation in the year incurred.  Although a social club is not under the same excess benefit rules, you could say you intend to report the unsubstantiated expenses as compensation and see how he reacts.

If the board does call an emergency meeting and decides, after your explanation of the rules and fiduciary duty, that the card should be reinstated without requiring the receipts, I think I would tell them to find a new treasurer. Whether you resign quietly or with a noisy announcement may depend on whether you think the members care.  But as part of a national college fraternity system, they are not setting a good example by saying people can do whatever they want, without regard to rules or good practice. --Don Kramer