Gifts Quiz: The Answers

1. The Office of Government Ethics
2. A federal employee cannot accept a gift that comes from a prohibited source or a gift that is offered because of the employee’s official positon.
3. b. The definition includes “gratuity, favor, discount, entertainment, hospitality, loan, forbearance and other item having monetary value.”
4. c.
5. $20. All cash gifts are prohibited, however.
6. $50.
7. Yes, you can accept a gift from family members or people with whom you are in a personal relationship so long as it is clear the gift is motivated by that relationship and not your position. The employee bears “considerable burden” in proving the gift was based on the personal relationship.
8. Yes, to the attendance questions, so long as the same is being offered to other conference attendees. Federal employees cannot accept free travel, however.
9. a. The rest of the options are considered “modest food and drink items.”
10. Yes! Trophies, plaques and certificates are considered to have “little intrinsic value.”
11. Yes again! Federal employees are entitled to “bona fide awards” so long as they receive written approval from ethics personnel. If a non-cash award is worth less than $200, no special permission is necessary.
12. $350.
13. Believe it or not, yes! The employee must then turn the gift over to the U.S. government.
14. False. Employees cannot give gifts to their supervisors, and supervisors are prohibited from accepting them. Employees can get permission from an ethics office to give a gift on a special occasion, such as marriage or retirement.

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