Many of you know I signed up for flexible spending account (FSA) for the year 2005, and was quite happy about getting an interest-free loan from Microsoft for our day-care expenses. Good news keeps coming: I actually made a $833 profit from signing up for the account last year, at least by now.

How come?

Here is the storyline: I signed up for an annual contribution of $5,000 to the dependent care FSA (a monthly contribution of $416.67). Before the end of June, I received full reimbursement of $5,000 for my son's day care bills running at about $900/month. Then I moved to Asia in November, which means I technically left the U.S. subsidiary and therefore ineligible of contributing to FSA. The result: I didn't make my November and December contribution, and therefore make a profit of $833.

I explained in my previous post about FSA that this kind of "uniform reimbursement" is not mandatory for dependent care FSA, and company offering this feature is exposed to credit risk:

"... if an employee leaves the job within the year, and claims all his FSA elected amount beforehand, employers will have a hard time getting the uncontributed money back."

So far, I haven't heard from our U.S. benefits department about paying back the money. Am I luck or will the bill finally come? As of now, I'm keeping this $833 in my accounting book as liability. Let's see how it goes from here.