<human>: Please don't take this as me trying to get my personal phone paid for by work. My current cell phone situation is I still split a family plan with my parents, and don't intend to get rid of that phone, I call them frequently and we all appreciate the unlimited minutes between each other. I also want to keep that phone as my "personal" while separating it from a "work" phone (in case of any auditing). Basically the whole reason I'm prefacing this is because I don't want this to turn into some lecture on how my current way is wrong.

Basically situations have arisen where working from home is a necessity sometimes. Whether it's being on an abnormally early call (before transit starts running) or inclement weather forcing me to work from home, I've had to use a good amount of my minutes on work calls. I have no problem using my personal when WFH is by choice, but these are really piling up. Unfortunately how my reporting structure works, my day-to-day report is different than manager so the person approving doesn't see this, and we're in an end-of-year budget freeze to try to maximize profit. Is there a way I could buy a cell phone and claim it as a work expense on my taxes? What proof would I have to provide when filing, and would I need any sign-off from my company? I should also add, a landline would cost roughly the same as a Sprint unlimited plan for me.

Could you distill the essence of the text into 1-3 sentences?
<bot>: red-tape blocking me from getting a work-issued phone, what would be necessary for me to claim a **separate** cell phone as a business expense on my taxes?