Domestic Travel

A traveler who domiciles (lives) in Austin, who is in travel status for a workshop, meeting or other type of event within Austin can seek reimbursement for registration and transportation related expenses, but will not be reimbursed for any meals or overnight stays unless either or both are 'hard-wired' into a contract or agreement directly connected to the funding source covering costs. This rule is firm, see HBP 11.5.2.

Because UT is a state institution, as state employees, we are exempt from paying state taxes, and in travel status, that often means hotel occupancy tax. 'Being exempt' doesn't go quite far enough to make clear the reality of this status:

• It is not ALLOWABLE for a state employee to seek reimbursement for any state tax
  (state tax is different from county/municipal/city occupancy tax).
  
  There are a couple of options for handling this scenario:
   

1. Traveler chooses to not seek reimbursement of state tax assessed on lodging costs
   (this means it should be excluded from the reimbursement claim submitted to the university)
    
2. Traveler presents a completed exemption certificate to the hotel (<-- that's a partially completed CoLA-specific PDF to give to your travelers), ideally upon check-in to avoid any issues with the tax, ensuring in advance it is to be removed from the bill.
   
   Here's the official wording:
   
   'A University employee traveler must present the hotel with a completed exemption certificate, available from the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. If a hotel refuses to honor the certificate, the traveler will be reimbursed for the tax, and the state comptroller should be notified of the hotel's refusal. Employees are not exempt from county or municipal hotel occupancy taxes.'

There are university employees who prefer to not carry the exemption certificate during their official travel and therefore knowingly do not claim state tax reimbursement - in such cases, the person processing the reimbursement request needs to be aware of this rule in order to proactively remove state tax from the claim, or request will be returned for correction.

Other travelers become accustomed to carrying a completed exemption certificate for every trip. In the event that a hotel refuses to honor the exemption certificate, the traveler should remain calm and ask the hotel representative to sign a brief statement written on the certificate that says 'REFUSED' --and print and sign their name, title and date. Traveler keeps the certification and submits it for reimbursement along with explanation.

• Traveler should contact the Office of Accounting and Financial Management Travel Desk for assistance if there are any related issues. Again, the traveler will be reimbursed the tax on an exception basis, and the hotel needs to be reported to the state, and should be discontinued as a lodging option going forward.

Travel to U.S. territories and our border neighbors (including Alaska and Hawaii) can be a little confusing, namely because some folks treat these destinations as 1. international, others treat them as 2. U.S./domestic, and still others create a 3. 'somewhere in between' category. 

Guess which one UT does!
If you picked #3, you'd be right. Trying to sort out who does what is a rabbit hole that should probably remain empty! Be on the lookout for this topic within the Authorization link above.

The section below is a little bit too detailed at this stage -it largely impacts how you process travel authorizations, but just to make sure you are in the right place, we're tackling some of it here and now. Don't worry about how this all fits into the bigger picture, just take a look at in-state travel vs. out-of-state travel vs. international travel.

The easiest way to explain how to treat different destinations is to show the example list that is included in the old *Define training handout for travel authorizations. See below! Note: This will also get covered within the VE5 Step-by-Step instructions in both Domestic and International sections, but we wanted to highlight it here in case it gets buried.

Be on the lookout for destination as a topic in the How-Tos!
Destination look-up and the locale code are important steps in travel authorization.

*Define VE5 Destination Code	*Define Locale Code	UT-Business Destination
TXSAN	I (in-state)	San Antonio, TX
TXELP	I	El Paso, TX
ALANN	O (out-of-state)	Anniston, AL
NYNEW	O	New York City, NY
CCTOR	C (Canada)	Toronto, Canada
MMMEX	M (Mexico)	Mexico City, Mexico
BRRIO	F (foreign)	Rio De Janeiro, BR
DCWAS: See VE5 Step-by-Step	O	Washington D.C.

With Travel, it can be tough to separate policy from process from procedure.
But we can at least help you get the answers you need.
   --if you get stuck, just holler and we'll help!

If you're dealing with domestic travel
(continental U.S, Alaska, Hawaii & U.S. territories) check out Domestic Travel Policy.

For international travel
(including Canada & Mexico) head to International Travel Policy.

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